Of course slogging through that manual unguided could be painful.
Color: Choose Ortho (unless you do alt processes).
Ignore: DOT+ and DOT- (unless you do graphic arts halftones).
A typical routine with densitometers is to put the read head down on air and zero it.
Then put the read head down on a clear part of your film and note the reading as Base+Fog.
Zero it again, this time on the clear part of the film.
Then read the different step wedge values or parts of your negative and note readings.
Assuming your machine is factory calibrated and not complaining of dead battery etc., you may have immediate results with these steps. May come a time when you need to calibrate it. Hope you have the calibration strip for that.