I'm using Windows 98 SE and Word 2000.  Is there some reasonably
inexpensive program that I can purchase and hopefully download that
will allow me to reconstruct chemical formulas, especially complicated
ones that
involve one or more ring systems?  I am trying to avoid scanning and
stripping in.

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Request for Question Clarification by mathtalk-ga on 01 Jul 2003 17:29 PDT

Hi, frank2-ga:

Depending on what your priority is (inexpensive vs. easy to use with
Word) and on the target (molecular formulas vs. structural diagrams;
2D? 3D?), we might be able to provide some additional options.

regards, mathtalk-ga

Hello frank2,

I'm not sure I'm on the right track, so hesitate to list these as an
official answer:

ChemDraw integrates with Word, but is not that cheap: $490 full price,
$150 educational price
http://products.cambridgesoft.com/ProdInfo.cfm?pid=275

Another nice, but expensive one (starts at $299)
http://www.cheminnovation.com/products/chem4d.asp

And: "KnowItAll’s ChemWindow® Edition is the most comprehensive
chemistry publishing software available today. ChemWindow helps you
produce great presentations for all aspects of chemistry research. It
is designed for the chemist who needs to draw chemical structures and
publish professional reports, complete with structures, spectra,
chromatograms, chemical reactions, lab experiment setups, chemical
engineering diagrams, data tables, and more! Includes in-place editing
from within MS Office programs."
http://www.chemwindow.com/
This comes from BioRad, another coy company that insists you contact
them for a quote.



ChemSketch is coy about prices, requiring you to contact a rep, but it
does offer a cut down version as freeware
http://www.acdlabs.com/products/chem_dsn_lab/chemsketch/
Freeware: http://www.acdlabs.com/download/chemsk.html

Some more freeware at
http://www.nongnu.org/bkchem/index.html
The information is fairly sparse, so I cannot tell if it is exportable
to Word.


A review of these and some other programs is available at
http://dragon.klte.hu/~gundat/rajzprogramok/dprog.html

I use ISIS Draw, a freeware download from MDL Information Systems.  It
is entirely compatible with Word (you can copy an ISIS Draw image and
"Paste Special . . ." into Word as an ISIS Draw file).
For more info, see
http://www.mdli.com/downloads/isis.draw/isisdrawreg.html

I've recently spent a few months working on site for a chemical
multinational and part of my remit was standardisation of
applications.

Obviously they have a major requirement for this sort of software and
they had settled on Isis Draw as a global standard. However ChemDraw
was also available, possibly because it has certain features that Isis
Draw may not have. However, given the difference in cost between zero
and $490...

Poe