Recently, I saw this in a Hinative answer.
使うとするなら
I know that とする means to "try to" and なら means if so I'm guessing it means if try to use, but why not use 使おうとするなら? This brings up the question in my head of that can you drop the (よ) from volitional form?
Here's the full context
手につける、はあまり使う機会がありません。使うとするなら、
例）手につけるアクセサリー。
などの文章でしょうか。手をつけるは、何かを始める時に使います。
例）新しい仕事に手をつける"
と isn't being used with a volitional here. とするなら、とすると、とすれば are expressions to make conditionals. Here is an example from the answer to the related post I've linked below.
お友達が来るとすれば５月でしょう
If my friend is going to come, it will probably be in May.
All of these expressions are constructed as "Aとする＋conditional expression", which essentially means "Assuming A, then B". とするなら is no exception here. とするなら＝とする＋なら, 「なら」 being the conditional expression here.
In your case, you have
使うとするなら、(...) などの文章でしょうか。
If you're going to use it, (...) is the kind of sentence you would write.
If you changed it to the volitional 使おう, you would get a slightly different meaning:
使おうとするなら、(...)
If you're going to try to use it (...)
Related Post: What are the purposes of としたら, とすれば, とすると?
Further reading & more examples: Supplementary Suru (とすると etc. is at the very bottom of the article)
