Chemweave
Formerly Chem Illustrator.
Free chemical drawing for the lab, with presentations, spreadsheets and documents built in.
Chemweave draws structures and reaction schemes with the hotkeys ChemDraw users already know, and it opens and saves your .cdxml files. Around the chemistry canvas it builds in the other programs a synthetic chemist spends the day in: presentations, spreadsheets, documents and a design page for posters and figures. Your structures stay editable in all of them, and the formula, masses, stereochemistry and warnings update as you draw.
It is free and open source (GPL v3), and runs on Windows, macOS and Linux, with a test version for iPad.
Beta. Chemweave is under active development: new features arrive every few days and some things may not work as they should yet. Save often, and please report anything that goes wrong. If you would rather update less often, choose Stable updates in Edit ▸ Settings ▸ Online: those versions are tried out on a real computer before they are offered.
Nothing to install: the browser version opens straight away. The desktop app adds what a browser can't do: editing drawings inside Word and PowerPoint, AutoSave to your own folders, and automatic updates.
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Smart reaction arrows
Draw an arrow between two structures and a + box appears above and below it. Click one and type the reagents: formulas get their subscripts as you type, the text sits just clear of the arrow, and the arrow grows to fit it, pushing the products along so nothing overlaps. Chemistry ▸ Reactions and Schemes ▸ Scheme Settings sets the gaps, the text size and alignment, and whether arrows fit their text.
Schemes that lay themselves out
Clean Up Reaction spaces a scheme evenly in one click. Arrange Scheme turns a row of steps into rows, a snake, a column down the page, a branching tree or a catalytic cycle, previewing each layout as you click it. A caption on its own goes in the middle of the cycle.
Reactions that move
Scheme ▸ Animate Reaction turns a drawn scheme into an animation: the atoms of each structure move to their places in the next, bonds that break fade out and new ones fade in. An equivalency sign between two drawings of the same molecule turns it in 3-D. Save the clip as a GIF or MP4, or put it on a slide as a looping video that plays in PowerPoint too. Based on cdxmorph by Ryan Shenvi, used with permission.
Labels and frames that follow your structures
| Compound numbers stay with their compounds | Frames fit what they surround |
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| Number Compounds ties each ID label to its structure. Move it, rotate it, flip it or add to it, and the number keeps its place underneath. | Add Frame draws a box that follows its contents: it grows as the structure grows and moves when it moves. |
Colour that means something
Fill rings with a colour, a gradient, hatching or dots (patterns can be see-through over a colour), add a drop shadow, and pick out parts of a structure with round or straight highlights, soft-edged, with a shadow, or centred between a double bond's lines. Fills and highlights move with their atoms and come along when you copy a structure.
Metals and mechanisms
| Metal complexes, from templates | Arrow pushing that snaps into place |
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| Coordination geometries, metallocenes, piano stools and 26 ligands are a click away. Hapto (η) bonds go to the middle of a ring or π-bond and follow it, and formulas count metal carbonyls, Cp and phosphines the way a chemist would. | Drag from a lone pair, bond or atom to where the electrons go and the arrow snaps on, bending (or turning S-shaped) to stay clear of the structure. Arrows and lone pairs stay stuck to their atoms when you move, turn or flip the structure. |
This is the beginning of the README. Read the rest at the original. Read the full README ↗
