How to Play Guitar.

The first thing you should do when you are learning how to play guitar is to buy a tuner. Tuners are usually sold anywhere guitars are sold, so they're not that hard to find. While you're tuning your guitar you need to know what the strings are. The strings are from bottom E, B, G, D, A, and then to top E. Some people can tune their instruments by ear. A person who is just learning guitar probably won't be able to do this right away, but in time, they could.
Usually the next thing people try to do is to learn some of the chords. A person who is trying to learn how to play can usually go on the internet and look up the chords. But if they don't want to do that, they can just go into a music store and buy a book with the chords in it. When people are learning to play chords, they have to be sure that their fingers are pressing firmly against the neck of the guitar. The person has to use the tips of their fingers because if they use the soft part, the string might not be held down all the way and the sound wouldn't come out. So the person might have to cut their finger nails if they're too long. So they'd be able to press down and not scratch the neck of the guitar.
After learning a few of the chords, the person can go on the internet and look up tabs for songs. On the internet there are websites with pretty much any song you want to learn. They have the lyrics to songs and then the chords are above them when they change.
And you pretty much just have to make up your own string pattern. Most people have their own way of doing that. Unless the person wants to sound just like the song, and not make it their own.
After the person has the rhythm of the song down, they can throw in things that make it sound better. Like things that lead the song in. And things that put different chords together. Just to make everything flow together.
The next thing a person should do is work on their timing. If a person doesn't have their timing right it can throw off the whole song, and possibly the people they're playing with. To work on timing, a person can play with other people that play other instruments. There are also devices you can use to help you.
I don't think that there are really any other steps that can help a person play the guitar.
Usually a person just figures most stuff out on their own. And that's how they get their sound. But if a person can't figure it out, they can always get lessons.