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We introduce methods to cope with self-similar sets when we do not assume any separation condition. For a self-similar set K ⊆ ℝᵈ we establish a similarity dimension-like formula for Hausdorff dimension regardless of any separation condition. By the application of this result we deduce that the Hausdorff measure and Hausdorff content of K are equal, which implies that K is Ahlfors regular if and only if Hᵗ (K) > 0 where t = dim[sub]H K. We further show that if t = dim[sub]H K < 1 then Hᵗ (K) > 0 is also equivalent to the weak separation property. Regarding Hausdorff dimension, we give a dimension approximation method that provides a tool to generalise results on non-overlapping self-similar sets to overlapping self-similar sets. We investigate how the Hausdorff dimension and measure of a self-similar set K ⊆ ℝᵈ behave under linear mappings. This depends on the nature of the group T generated by the orthogonal parts of the defining maps of K. We show that if T is finite then every linear image of K is a graph directed attractor and there exists at least one projection of K such that the dimension drops under projection. In general, with no restrictions on T we establish that Hᵗ (L ∘ O(K)) = Hᵗ (L(K)) for every element O of the closure of T , where L is a linear map and t = dim[sub]H K. We also prove that for disjoint subsets A and B of K we have that Hᵗ (L(A) ∩ L(B)) = 0. Hochman and Shmerkin showed that if T is dense in SO(d; ℝ) and the strong separation condition is satisfied then dim[sub]H (g(K)) = min {dim[sub]H K; l} for every continuously differentiable map g of rank l. We deduce the same result without any separation condition and we generalize a result of Eroğlu by obtaining that Hᵗ (g(K)) = 0. We show that for the attractor (K1, … ,Kq) of a graph directed iterated function system, for each 1 ≤ j ≤ q and ε > 0 there exists a self-similar set K ⊆ Kj that satisfies the strong separation condition and dim[sub]H Kj - ε < dim[sub]H K. We show that we can further assume convenient conditions on the orthogonal parts and similarity ratios of the defining similarities of K. Using this property we obtain results on a range of topics including on dimensions of projections, intersections, distance sets and sums and products of sets. We study the situations where the Hausdorff measure and Hausdorff content of a set are equal in the critical dimension. Our main result here shows that this equality holds for any subset of a set corresponding to a nontrivial cylinder of an irreducible subshift of finite type, and thus also for any self-similar or graph directed self-similar set, regardless of separation conditions. The main tool in the proof is an exhaustion lemma for Hausdorff measure based on the Vitali's Covering Theorem. We also give several examples showing that one cannot hope for the equality to hold in general if one moves in a number of the natural directions away from `self-similar'. Finally we consider an analogous version of the problem for packing measure. In this case we need the strong separation condition and can only prove that the packing measure and δ-approximate packing pre-measure coincide for sufficiently small δ > 0.