ChemDraw Tips & Tricks

[@ThatChemistOld]

Make sure you subscribe to the new channel where all the new videos will be posted! kzbin.info/door/0nEDA3uRd5YuvBfMwQNteg

[@chrisboyall8602]

Wish I'd have known these shortcuts months ago, just submitted my dissertation on synthesising porphyrin photosensitizers

[@ThatChemistOld]

darn, sorry to hear that - but at least your thesis is submitted!!

[@tigerbear9353]

Same here. Arranging molecules in figures without the tricks in this video is painful.

[@ringshift3722]

Same here, i submitted mine on novel indole antidepressants a couple months back. I’m glad these tips are here for next time though

[@erikl1478]

One more thing I would add is the Ctrl + Right arrow shortcut, which when a molecule is selected draws an centered straight reaction arrow and copies the selected molecule as the product. Super helpful if one has a larger structure and the reaction is only slightly changing the molecule (also works with retro synthesis arrows). Edit: Forgot to add because I was in a hurry: Excellent content as usual, keep up the good work!

[@mauricehietkampmh]

Don't forget that you can change the NMR solvent in preferences!

[@ThatChemistOld]

I did not know that!

[@J0riS]

True, but is it normal that I can only choose between DMSO-d6 and CDCl3 ?

[@calebblaws2731]

@@J0riS yes

[@kevinmarrs3372]

I also was not aware of this

[@slimp4644]

MAURICE THE GOAT

[@olzoro8985]

Outstanding, to the point content! You can tell that this guy has plenty of experience and I regard it as quite a privilege to learn these sort of tricks the fast way, without having to figure it out myself. Many thanks, I appreciate your work!

[@ThatChemistOld]

Glad you enjoyed it!

[@hannostanley]

Another cool feature which took me ages to figure out is the “multi-center attachment point” tool which allows you to make organometallic structures such as ferrocene and other sandwich complexes.

[@ThatChemistOld]

I still haven't figured that out

[@hannostanley]

​@@ThatChemistOld place a Cp ring down and select the whole ring, then go to structure --> add multi-center attachment point, then just add a bond from the asterisk at the center of your cp ring to your metal center. In the case of ferrocene obviously just do the same for the other side. To add perspective, select the bond (s) where the "central" hapticity-5 bond intersects with the cp ring and do "bring to front" so that the cp ring lies above the central bond basically. Hope that makes sense.

[@quenchedexciton]

I actually make this structure a lot my problem is the centering of it. Worse is the clean up structure command does not work with the 3d accurate cp ring. representation.

[@hsuanchin]

It’s so useful. Most of the skills that even I’ve used chemdraw for about 10 years and don’t know about these. It could save me a lot of time moving objects one by one. Thx so much😊

[@mateuszjanek3610]

Hey, just commenting to tell you you were recommended to me and two of my pharmacy studies colleagues by KZbin and we enjoy your content a lot! Keep it up and nice video!

[@ThatChemistOld]

thank you!!

[@joshuamitchell5530]

The reaction scheme one is super helpful. Never properly figured out how to centre everything.

[@ThatChemistOld]

I asked my PI when I joined his group and he did not know how to do stuff properly in chemdraw

[@Vracaum]

The chemist we don't deserve, but the one we all needed 👏

[@ThatChemistOld]

[@necroversegames]

I'm so amazed to see how quickly you are growing! You are doing great work man! I showed your channel to my organic chemistry research group (I'm an undergrad), and all of the grad students and my PI thought it was really cool and thought your solvent tier list was hilarious lol. Keep it up!!

[@ThatChemistOld]

Awesome :D!

[@martynasmalikenas1736]

One cool feature I accidentally discovered was quickly writing multiple functional group names or abbreviations on atoms, such as NHBoc, NHFmoc, ONs or any name really. Select bond tool, double click on a carbon, write some group name and if the group repeats several times you can triple click on another atom and change it to the previously written abbreviation without any typing. Also the pen tool is greatly underappreciated, I've just recently discovered you can draw custom shapes and modify them in all kinds of ways, which opened a door to cool new figure or scheme designs. One last trick I use quite often is the join function. This is especially useful in drawing large custom structures, because sometimes Ctrl+Shift+K gives unsatisfactory results. I'm sure you know this, but you can click on an atom (the atom which you want to remain stationary), then Shift+Click on another atom (the atom, through which you want to add the molecule to the other atom), then press Ctrl+J and that joins the two molecules. I'm working with S-adenosyl-L-methionine analogues and this helps a lot in drawing custom molecules. Hope this helps someone, I'll sure be glad to see some more videos. You should make a series out on this, because CD is full of hidden cool functions and people could share their neat tricks in the comments, would help students and OC undergrads immensely. Thanks TC!

[@ThatChemistOld]

Synthesis Workshop has a really good video showing how to use the pen tool

[@Aetohatir]

Two of my favourite things are: Alt + Arrow keys instantly gives you a reaction arrow. Hitting Space after drawing a molecule atomatically selects it.

[@benzenering2183]

This was very helpful! Especially the alignment tools

[@ThatChemistOld]

Thank you! I will do a second video covering even more stuff next week!

[@benzenering2183]

​@@ThatChemistOld Amazing! Keep up the good work, and I'm looking forward to your next video

[@jonathandanon1320]

Shortcut for quick and easy access Reaxys/SciFinder and GHS data: View --> Other Toolbars --> Add-ins Select your molecule and click on the desired tool. GHS data is really good and quick for simple molecules. Reaxys/SciFinder work for molecules and reactions (for the latter select your whole reaction scheme with starting material, arrow, and product).

[@homesynthesis]

This is a hella cool video that I didn't know I needed. I've been building all my chemicals using chemfig in TeX and I've gotten super fast and its nice to organize and stuff but seeing these tips might make me swap over

[@quenchedexciton]

Great video on the more utilitarian basics of chemdraw. Sending to my lab cause their structures hurt sometimes 😅

[@ThatChemistOld]

:D

[@tigerbear9353]

Wow, I hope I have seen this video earlier. Really helpful!

[@ThatChemistOld]

Thanks!

[@curiositylab287]

Okay wow, there is so much stuff I didn't know, thanks so much!

[@ThatChemistOld]

np!

[@ficolas2]

If you select a chunk of a molecule, or of several molecules, instead of the entire molecule, then deselect, and press space, it will select the entire thing

[@ThatChemistOld]

you can also double left click on part of a molecule to select all of it

[@nicholasmwanzia776]

Thanks for the tips.

[@cruser1381]

Can you do a video on how to use topspin or the HPLC softwares, there is very little info on those aside from like manufacture’s manuals which are super technical and hard to follow.

[@ThatChemistOld]

I'm much more likely to do a video on mestrenova - topspin is fine for acquisition, but it is pretty shitty for processing lots of spectra

[@hiteshagath2413]

Can you give a information about the interpretation of various data like LCMS,NMR etc

[@ThatChemistOld]

Yeah I’m planning on making some spectroscopy/spectrometry videos at some point

[@vigneshg7571]

Pls do more video on shortcuts, smiles in chemdraw

[@ThatChemistOld]

will do

[@月恒君]

Thank you, I find it useful

[@ThatChemistOld]

Glad to hear that!

[@slimp4644]

Very insightful, thank you! Would you consider doing one for Mestrenova as well?

[@ThatChemistOld]

For sure!

[@ArsenySmekhov]

Thank you!

[@omarsalcedo201]

Any channels like this one for biologists that you guys would recommend?

[@ThatChemistOld]

I think the thought emporium had a bit of stuff like this, but I don’t know if he does tutorials very much

[@SulemanKhan-fc9my]

Could you please provide a professional design for the structure of Covalent Organic Frameworks (COFs)? I would greatly appreciate your assistance. Thank you.

[@jorisr4717]

This was really helpful!!

[@ThatChemistOld]

I'm so glad!

[@specialk3534]

Bold is beautiful too, especially for pub quality figures.

[@yunhong6982]

A great video! And in terms of the future content, do you have a clever way to draw catalytic cycles? I usually draw a perfect circle, then spend a lot of time try to make arrows and intermediates fit that perfect cycle. I think this is really a stupid way to do catalytic cycles.

[@ThatChemistOld]

I still struggle with catalytic cycles - I think using one that someone else has already made would be the easiest, but this is definitely a shortcoming of chemdraw

[@Homm3dude88]

Off topic question: since I'm an analytical chemist I won't be able to ask any chemistry questions, but I can ask random questions! So what games do you enjoy playing outside of doing chemistry work (except for minecraft, of course).

[@ThatChemistOld]

VR ones particularly right now, but I have played lots of games

[@KYchiu402]

10:24-10:29 excuse me, want to know how did you draw that amine compound without using the text tool

[@ThatChemistOld]

Pressing 1 to add a bond and R to make R groups

[@KYchiu402]

@@ThatChemistOld Is that shortcut key I can set? as when I press 1, it add a n-Bu group at the bond

[@실험싫엄]

This is super useful!

[@ThatChemistOld]

Thanks!

[@miadiamia]

So useful!

[@ThatChemistOld]

Glad to hear it!

[@Aetohatir]

that's one clicky keyboard you got going there. I myself am a cherry MX Blue boi

[@ThatChemistOld]

I’m rocking a red dragon

[@ricardodelemos6942]

I've been trying for weeks to draw a Fe(3-Br-SalEen)2 complex with Chemdraw and it's very very hard if I use the Structure Perspective tool. I know I should just draw it on a plane and adjust bond lenghts and angles as I see fit, but I REALLY want to draw it somewhat accurately. I even went on Avogadro and it was really easy with the optimizations and whatnot. Is there any way I can export xyz coordinates, for example, from there to ChemDraw or a similar software? That or a video on drawing 3d stuff in ChemDraw would be really great :D

[@ThatChemistOld]

You should ask people on the discord - they would have a better idea than I do. They are really helpful, come join the party!

[@estebanhernandez7151]

When copying over my structures from ChemDraw to another place I run into this issue where if I have a carbonyl it often cuts off the top of the O. I usually work around it by inserting an arrow or line above the O and coloring it white so that it doesn't show up. Has anyone ran into this issue? Do you think it's my document settings?

[@ThatChemistOld]

I haven't had this issue - maybe you just aren't selecting wide enough? if its the only thing in the document, I do Ctrl+A and then Ctrl+C

[@Petemate69]

=0 I've been aligneding things with a ruler on the monitor for years LOL

[@ThatChemistOld]

dang

[@simonegabellini6382]

If i can ask a question: today i had to do a conductometric measurements on a solution of HClO4 and water, with a procedure taken from a paper. Unfortunately we didn't have HClO4 and the paper didn't tell why they used HClO4, so the prof asked if perchloric acid was really necessary , leaving me with that doubt. Acidity in water should be the same as all other strong acids, maybe it has something to do with the different Ka?

[@ThatChemistOld]

perchlorates are used as electrolytes

[@simonegabellini6382]

@@ThatChemistOld damn, didn't think about that, i still have a long way to go😅. I'll discuss about it with the prof.

[@marcikraus3726]

thanks dude

[@peruanska4385]

how i can get the software ( for free)

[@ThatChemistOld]

Ask ppl in the discord

[@luciomagno6195]

GOOD CONTENT 👌☺️

[@fakhrulnawawi9681]

Why when copying the structure into paint, it only copy half of it?

[@189643478]

Best way to do that is to go to “save as”, then select “PNG image” and then opening up the new file using paint. However, you will not be able to open up the PNG file with ChemDraw again. Of course, you can save your work twice, once as a ChemDraw file and once as a PNG file. Hope this helps.

[@fakhrulnawawi9681]

@@189643478 it really helps..thxx

[@debanjansen1282]

Thanks....can u elaborate how to dry solvents in general oChem lab. Tips and tricks for SN2, SN1 E1, E2 type reactions from pracrical point of view.

[@ThatChemistOld]

dry solvents with molecular sieves - for the SN2 et al., it depends on context

[@lukassorowka2672]

Sodium should work too, but only for halogen free solvents

[@pauldeck4500]

"Purification of Laboratory Chemicals" is a nice book.

[@Valdagast]

Ah! I remember the olden days, when female chemists would select their mates based on who could draw the most perfect benzene rings.

[@ThatChemistOld]

"Girls like guys with a big scope"

[@ejkozan]

As for Reaxys and Sci-Finder, from version 16 if I remember correctly ChemDraw have built-in search buttons for those two.

[@ThatChemistOld]

there was also one for google patents search that was really useful when it was still a feature

[@ejkozan]

@@ThatChemistOld interesting, i did not know that one option! I suppose they removed it because I can not find it in newer versions.