ChemDoodle 2D v11.13.0 https://ichemlabs.com/news/read?post=cd2d1113released is a feature update wrapping up their latest massive work on stereochemistry. A new advanced CIP descriptor engine is implemented for the most accurate and consistent CIP assignments and the MDL/BIOVIA stereochemical drawing interpretation algorithm is now implemented along side the IUPAC specification. iChemLabs believe ChemDoodle is now the industry leader for handling stereochemistry, especially in 2D drawings. Several improvements are also included.

This update is free for all ChemDoodle subscriptions, Lifetime and Site licenses. Licenses are as little as $18, and they have a free trial available at: https://www.chemdoodle.com/.

 

There has been a twitter discussion on roundtrip editing between ChemDraw and Office 365, there was a little confusion between the desktop and web versions.

Philip Skinner summarised things for the current versions.

To clarify. Copy/paste of editable structures into MS Office works on PC and Mac. Copy/paste of editable structures into MS Office Online does not work on PC nor on Mac

The same is true for pretty much all chemical drawing packages.

 

I recently wrote a script in response to a tweet

A reader wrote in to ask if it might be possible to modify the script to use the identifier in the file containing the SMILES string as shown below.

Ic1ccccc1   ID_1
CC=O    ID_2
CC(O)=O     ID_3
CC(OC(C)=O)=O   ID_4
CC(C)=O     ID_5
CC#N    ID_6
CC(c1ccccc1)=O  ID_7
CC(Br)=O    ID_8
CC(Cl)=O    ID_9

So I've modified the script to allow this, the full details are here including a link to download the script.

 

Have you ever wanted to convert a file containing multiple SMILES strings to ChemDraw structures?

This AppleScript might help

 

Whenever there is an update to ChemDraw I always hold my breath to see if round-trip editing (i.e. the ability to copy and paste from a chemical drawing package into Word for example and then be able to copy and paste the structure back from Word into the chemical drawing application) has been broken.

Fortunately this blog post provides an invaluable update to the current situation.

ChemDraw is a very established chemical drawing package that probably set the standard for publication quality chemical drawing. However, on the Mac platform in particular I think it is true to say Cambridgesoft have taken their eye off the ball and released versions that were not up to their usual standard.

ChemDraw 17 is in someways a fresh beginning you can read the full review here.

 

Perkin-Elmer have just announced the ChemDraw Innovation Challenge - a forum designed to shape the future of Chemdraw

For the past 30 years, ChemDraw has been known around globe as the premier chemical drawing tool for chemists and biologists alike. While each version has brought more powerful features (many of which came from feedback from our passionate user base), we’ve all had that moment where we wanted ChemDraw to do [X]. We want to hear your ideas, suggestions for new features, new third-party applications we should integrate and more. The sky's the limit - big or small, all ideas are welcome!

 

I just noticed that a new version of ChemDraw has been released.

ChemDraw and ChemOffice 16.0.1 provides a point release to address a number of usability concerns, primarily on Mac, identified subsequent to the 16.0 release. ChemOffice Pro, ChemDraw Pro, ChemDraw Prime and the ChemDraw Active-X control (CDAX) have been updated.

I have no details on what issues have been addressed, hopefully the topic on the Cambridgesoft forum will provide more user experience.

Forum Topic:- Update Chemdraw 16 Mac

 

There is a review of ChemDraw 16 over on Chemistry and Computers.

A key feature is found-trip editing, wherein a user could make a drawing in one application, copy and paste the drawing into another application, and then later copy and paste back into the original application, and still be able to edit the drawing. Generations of Mac users relied on this feature to go from applications like ChemDraw into PowerPoint and back again. This has been has been regularly broken as we had various updates to Mac oSX, Microsoft Office, iWork and ChemDraw. It sounds like some interoperability has returned but it may depend on which versions of the various components you are running.

Now updated to include Mac OSX Sierra, ChemDraw 16 works and round-trip editing using Word 2011 still works! Unfortunately round-trip editing appears to be broken in Pages, Keynote and Numbers.

 

A reader flagged this issue for me.

Word 2016 for Mac: I can't cut-and-paste an image from a vector drawing program I am a scientist and I routinely create images in a vector drawing program called ChemBioDraw. In past versions of Word, I was always able to copy these images to the clipboard and paste directly into the text of a document. With Word 2016 for Mac, all I get is many lines of gibberish code and no image. Am I missing something, or has the ability to handle vector graphics been eliminated from the program? FYI- a friend of mine who does design is having the same problem with a CAD program.

A quick search of the ChemBioDraw support forum highlights several threads that appear to be about the same issue.

I'm a new user of ChemDraw, and I have tried to copy/paste my structure into word and just end up with heaps of text like this:

0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0E 3.9121 2.7155 0.0000 C 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0E 3.9385 1.8909 0.0000 N 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 2 4 0  1 3 4 0  3 4 4 0  4 5 4 0  6 7 1 0  7 8 2 0  8 9 1 0  9 10 2 0  10 11 1 0  6 11 2 0  12 13 1 0  13 14 2 0  14 15 1 0  15 16 2 0  16 17 1 0  12 17 2 0  2 18 1 0  18 5 1 1  19 20 4 0  19

With the rather unhelpful response

Currently our products are not supported with MS Office 2016. We plan to support MS Office 2016 for the future release/update.

The only thing I can suggest in the meantime is use the "Paste as PDF" functionality, this should allow display and round-trip editing.

I did a quick test with ChemDoodle and there don't seem to be any issues with this chemical drawing programme.

 

@MatToddChem recently tweeted

Chemdraw file containing lots of molecules --> separate png/jpg images of each molecule. Anyone got a script that automates that? #headache

Whilst it is possible to convert a ChemDraw file to an image the problem is you get a single png file containing all the structures. In order to get individual image files it is first necessary to separate the individual structures. The easiest way to this is to convert from cdx to SMILES format. We can then take each of the individual SMILES strings and generate an image using OpenBabel all controlled by an Applescript.

 

ChemBioDraw 14 was released recently and I thought I’d download the demo version and have a quick look at it. I’ve written my first impressions here.

Perkin Elmer are looking for input on ChemBioDraw

Calling all chemists! PerkinElmer wants to know what changes you would like made to the #ChemDraw ChemOffice suite? What features are important to you? Which ones are needed? Which ones do you never use? Please help us design the future direction of this product by completing this short (1 page) survey

Given the comments I’ve received from readers this seems like a chance to at least get your views registered and ask for better Mac support.

 

I’ve added a minor update to the Export as mol file script.

One of the issues with the original script that the mol file contains in its first line the incorrect title of the file (it appears to be the name of the document template).

When you just launched your ChemDraw application, or created a new document, the title would be “Untitled **”, such as "Untitled ACS Document 1996-1". When you save it as Mol file, its header block will inherit the current document title "Untitled ACS Document 1996-2”.

Untitled ACS Document 1996-2
ChemDraw12201318592D

14 16  0  0  0  0  0  0  0  0999 V2000

It would be better to have the molfile title the same as the file name the user enters in the dialog box, one way to achieve this is to “edit” the file and then save again to the same file name. We can do this by adding a line to clean up the structure and then saving.

try
save first document in (molAttachment) as "MDL Molfile”
--This is to ensure the title of the mol file is set correctly
do menu item "Clean Up Structure" of menu "Structure"
save first document in (molAttachment) as "MDL Molfile"
close first document saving no

If you now look at the mol file in a text editor you can see the title is set more appropriately.

Mol file1.mol
ChemDraw12201319082D

14 16  0  0  0  0  0  0  0  0999 V2000

 

A number of publishers are seeking to add extra value to publications by including access to chemical structure information to aid searching and indexing. More details are included in this comment from Elsevier.

Elsevier would like to enrich online articles by visualising and providing details of chemical structures you define as the main chemical compounds described in your article. For this purpose, mol files of the key compounds can be uploaded in EES. Please use your preferred drawing tool to export chemical structures as mol files and ensure that they are well defined and do not contain aromtic bonds, R-Groups or other variables. Submitted mol files will be available for downloading from your online article on ScienceDirect. Furthermore, Elsevier will generate InChI keys from the mol files and include them in the online article, which increase the online searchability of your article e.g. in Google. InChI keys will also be used to link the article to additional data in Reaxys.

Since you need to export each structure as an individual file this will become somewhat tedious, fortunately Brian Myers has written an applescript that greatly helps the process for ChemBioDraw users

Now updated.

Un1Chem is a new web resource provided by the EBI, it is a 'Unified Chemical Identifier' system, designed to assist in the rapid cross-referencing of chemical structures, and their identifiers, between databases. Currently the uniChem contains data from 19 different databases:-

Since ChemBioDraw can generate InChi Keys I thought it might be interesting to write an applescript that access this service. The InChIKey is a short, fixed-length character signature based on a hash code of the InChI string. By definition, hashing is a one-way conversion procedure and the original structure cannot be restored from the InChiKey allowing confidential searching.

Full details are here