Introduction to ChemDraw
Introduction
A key skill you will need throughout your career in Chemistry is the ability to produce professional-looking documents, for example essays, formal laboratory reportsand dissertations that cover a range of information as an integrated part of the final document. This may include chemical structures, chemical equations, diagrams, tables, pictures, etc. One of the main software packages for the production of chemical structures is called ChemDraw and over the course of your degree programme you will have many opportunities to use it time and time again. The output from ChemDraw can be copied and pasted into Word documents, so you can integrate structures etc with your reports and essays, and PowerPoint, so you can use them in presentations.
In this first exercise, we wish to introduce the program to you and ask you complete a few simple tasks, to start the familiarisation process, and also to begin demonstrating the power of the software. As with anything, the more you use something the easier it becomes to navigate your way around, so please feel free to explore the programme beyond the set tasks. You will have other, more complex, assignments to complete later in the academic year. ChemDraw is made available to you via the University computer system; however, individual licences tend to be quite expensive and you better consult the list of alternatives on page 4, if you wish to have a free structure-drawing program for your own machine.
You find ChemDraw 5 (Standard version) by going to Start –> All Programs –> EPS Programs –> CS ChemOffice:
Select CS ChemDraw Std to open the programme. You should have a screen to draw in, with a set of tools down the left hand side of the page, each indicated by an icon in a wee square.
Getting Started
ChemDraw is an application for drawing chemical structures, reaction sequences and other related tasks. The resulting structuresand reaction schemes can be transferred into other documents, such as Word/PowerPoint/Excel, via the ‘copy’ and ‘paste’ commands.
To produce documents that look professional and coherent, your ChemDraw-produced material should use the recommended font, style and font size settings that are used in journal publications.
The easiest way to adjust the settings is to go to the File menu and select Open Special. Select ACS-1996.cds (American Chemical Society) or, if you wish to be more patriotic, RSC-1997.cds (Royal Society of Chemistry).
It is worthwhile to tickFixed Lengths and Fixed Angles in the Tools pull-down menu:
For simple reaction sequences, you will need a number of tools from the list of icons on the LHS of the screen. Clicking once on the icon activates that tool; clicking another icon switches to the new tool. The tools on offer are designed to allow you to produce easily very complicated looking structures, by giving you access to all of the common drawing elements required in Chemistry. Use of the tools is pretty self-evident and most require use of the mouse. Here is a brief run down of what they all do:
- The top left hand icon is a lasso. Using the mouse you can draw round anything on the page and then copy and paste it (using the ‘edit’ drop down menu), or rotate it or resize it.
- The top right icon is a square(termed ‘Marquee’ in the Help documents) This does a similar job to the lasso, so you can use either.
- Next down on the LHS is Solid BondTool(for drawing single and multiple bonds). Try draw a line with it, using the mouse. If you try to draw another line on top of the original, the programme creates a double bond.
- On the RHS is an eraser icon for removing unwanted stuff by clicking with the mouse.
- Dashed bond – self evident (I hope!)
- Text tool– has letter A as icon –for adding atom labels (associated with bonds) and text captions. To place an atom label, run the cursor over your structure with the mouse until a black square appears over the atom position, click and a text box appears for typing the atom symbol. For a caption, click where you want it to appear, and type in the text box created.
- Hashed bond – self evident
- Pen Tool (fountain pen as icon)– can be used to draw free line curves.
- Hashed wedged bond (looking like a hashed triangle) – self evident (bond going away in 3D space)
- Arrows– the little black triangle shows that this box expands to show various types of arrows. Left click on the icon and you see the full choice.
11. Bold bond – self evident, useful in 3D-style drawings
12. Orbitals – again expands to show collection of different orbitals, including hybrids.
13. Wedged bond (a solid triangle) – bond comes toward you in 3D
14. Brackets, curves, spheres, lines– again expands to show a range, and also has borders to draw around your structures.
15. Hollow wedged bond (an open triangle) – self evident
16. Useful things like lone pairs, radicals and charges
17. Dative bond – for use in donor-acceptor complexes
18. Various shapes and templates– expands hugely to provide access to an enormous range of different chemically useful structures, including amino acids, DNA bases, etc, and also includes stereocentres, useful for3D drawings. More of these so-called templates can be downloaded for free at
19. Squiggly or wavy bond – leaves undefined whether a bond comes out of or goes behind the paper plane
20. Zig-zag – for drawing long alkyl chains
21–26. Various shapes from triangle to octagon(cyclopropane to cyclooctane)
27–28. Cyclohexane rings in two ‘chair’ conformations – going to haunt you in Year 2
29. Cyclopentadiene rings – common in Organometallic Chemistry (next year)
30. Benzene ring – self-evident (note that Organic chemists almost always draw the benzene ring with double bonds)
Have a wee play around with the various tools to see what they can do. It is quite easy to draw quickly even complicated molecules with a little bit of practice.
Other useful features
You can change the colour of a selected molecule (or even portion of a molecule) and/or text using the Color menu.
Analyze Structure will calculate the molecular weight of a selected molecule.
Use the Object menu to center a selected molecule on a page, align it with another molecule, even flip or rotate drawings, or scale them (= make your drawing smaller or larger).
The Crosshair is also occasionally quite useful to align molecules neatly on a page.
Structure-drawing programs
MarvinSketch( : Free structure-drawing package and probably the best alternative to ChemDraw although there are some subtle differences in doing things. Registration required. Available both for installation on a local PC; can also be accessed in a browser (
ACD/ChemSketch Freeware ( Another free chemical drawing package; however, the free version does not have all the functionality. Registration required. If you wish to try out the program, you’ll find it under EPS Programs –> ACD NMR Processor –> ChemSketch on the computers in WP102.
ChemDoodle ( Free trial available, and the price of a licence is reasonable (ca. £25). Also available for mobile devices (both iOS and Android).
ChemDraw ( Alas,except for trial versionsa fully licensed ChemDrawis quite expensive. Only the ChemDraw for iPadapp is reasonably priced at $9.99 (one snag though: aligning objects does not work), and Chem3D for the iPad is even free.
ChemDraw plugin : can be downloaded for free( for your web browser; the plugin allows you to access websites which make use of this plugin.
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