ChemDraw Tips 1 | Macs in Chemistry

ChemDraw Advanced User tips 1

If you are a regular user of ChemBioDraw (aka ChemDraw) you may be aware of the keyboard shortcuts that enable to quickly enter chemical structures.In fact there are a huge number of keyboard shortcuts and I've tried to describe them all in the table below. I've been through each key on the keyboard with either an atom or bond selected and recorded the result with or without modifier keys pressed.

So with an atom selected pressing shift E converts the atom to COOCH₃, others apply only when you have a bond selected.

Key	Shift	Control	Command	Shift+ Command	Alt+ Command
A	A	Ac		Select All
B	Br	B
C	C	Cl		Copy Selection	Text center	Copy selection as SMILES
D	D	D
E	Et	COOCH₃	Open Help	Toggle Fixed angles
F	F	F		Toggle Formula font
G	g	G		Group selected objects	Ungroup
H	H	H		Toggle Crosshairs	Flip Horizontal
I	I	I
J	j	J			Text Justified
K	K	K		Scale	Clean up Structure
L	Cl	Cl		Toggle Fixed Lengths	Text left
M	Me	Me		Minimise Window to dock
N	N	Na		New document	Convert Name to Structure	Convert Structure to Name
O	O	O		Open
P	P	Ph		Print	Page Setup	Paste SMILES
Q	Q	Q		Quit
R	R	R		Rotate	Text Right
S	S	Si		Save	Save As
T	TMS	Ots
U	u	U
V	v	V		Paste	Flip Vertical
W	w	W		Close
X	x	X			Clean up Reaction
Y	y	Y		Repeat
Z	z	Z		Undo
1	n-Bu
2	s-Bu
3	t-Bu
4	Ph
5	Ac
6	CH₂OH
7	7
8	Add 3 carbons
9	Add 2 carbons
0	Add 1 carbon
Enter	Open an atom label text box.
/	Display the Atom Properties
	dialog box.
'	Add atom number (starts at 1)
;				Toggle Ruler
+	+ve charge
-	-ve charge
=	Choose Nickname
With Bond selected
1	plain single bond
2	double
3	triple
4	4 bond
b	bold
c	bond center (db only)
d	dashed
f	move to front
h	hashed
l	bond left (db only)
r	bond right (db only)
w	wedge
y	wavy
?	Bond Properties

Also Pressing the command key when benzene ring selected gives resonance structure.

All the key definitions are held in a file found here "/Applications/CS ChemOffice 2008/CS ChemDraw/ChemDraw Items/CS ChemDraw/HotKeys.txt". This file can be edited with a text editor.
The general format is letter space text so to assign j to invoke the lasso tool simply add :-

j TOOL_LASSO

and save the file. Now pressing the j key will invoke the lasso tool. Other definitions that can be used are in the HotKeys.txt file.