Chemistry is one of the most interesting and complex high-school subjects. Learning about chemical reactions and substances is exciting, but understanding it can be a challenge to some people. Especially students that have little imagination. Don’t worry: no one is born with an innate comprehension of chemistry. Therefore, a pencil, a sheet of paper and some math is often all you need to advance your knowledge about chemistry. But as time goes on, we tend to forget how things work and what makes them tick. If this sounds like you (or someone you know), let me tell you that it’s never too late to start learning Chemistry all over again! All you need is the right study tool and the persistence to succeed.If you need free chemical drawing software on Mac, ChemDoodle might be the best. It’s a chemical drawing program that allows you to draw chemical structures online and visualize chemical reactions easily. It also has a built-in formula editor, keyboard shortcuts for easy access, flexible 2D and 3D views, etc.
When it comes to drawing chemical structures there are a growing number of programs available ranging from commercial software (which can be expensive) to web-based apps. Not long ago, the only option was a Windows-only program called ChemDraw (also known as Chemical Draw Version 9 and CDK). Nowadays, however, there is more cross-platform software than ever. This post will give you an overview of free chemical drawing software for Mac OS X. The list includes reference managers, diagramming tools, thermodynamics software, quantum calculations, and molecular modeling. Here are some good software to start with.
Chemical Structures in 3D
Details
Rating: 4/5
Price: Free
Chemical Structures in 3D
If you’re looking for a new way to visualize your chemical compounds and their interactions, we’ve got some good news: 3D models are here!
We’ve all been there—you’re working on a project, and you suddenly get stuck because you can’t quite visualize the structure of the compound you’re working with. Or maybe you just want to see what your project would look like if it were made up of a different combination of atoms. Either way, our new 3D modeling tool can help!
With this tool, now available on our website, you can visualize your compounds in three dimensions—and it’s completely free! You can also use it to determine whether certain chemicals will interact with each other, or whether they’ll be able to enter or exit a cell membrane. This tool is super easy to use—just upload your chemical structure and press play! Then watch as it comes alive right before your eyes.
Jmol is one of the best chemical structure drawing software that is based on an open-source java viewer. Jmol is an interactive and powerful web browser applet with featured for crystals, chemicals, biomolecules, and materials. This software can conveniently run on Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux/Unix systems. Get this software downloaded online.
Advanced Chemical Drawing Software
Details
Rating: 4.2/5
Price: Free
It’s time to stop using that old pen and paper to draw your chemical structures.
We’re pretty sure that’s what you’ve been doing up until now, right? It’s okay—we all do it. But there are so many benefits to using software instead of a pen and paper that it’s time to make the switch. Ready? Let’s go!
Benefits of Using Advanced Chemical Drawing Software
1) It’s easier to manipulate your data with a keyboard than it is by hand. If you’ve ever tried to use a pencil or pen while standing at a whiteboard, then you know how hard it can be to just get one thing right before moving on to the next step. And if this is your first time drawing out a structure, you might have no idea where to start! With software, though, you can easily drag and drop elements into place, which will save you tons of time in the long run.
2) It looks nicer when printed out or shared with others via email or text message (or even fax machine). When we say “looks nicer,” we mean that your chemical structures will look more professional and polished because they’ll be created using advanced graphics software instead of handwriting them down on paper. If anything else
Go for MarvinSketch, an advanced chemical drawing software ideal for students, educators, scientists, researchers and more. It allows you to quickly draw molecules through various advanced options and functions available on GUI. You can easily create reaction drawings as well as query drawing with this software. Get this software downloaded instantly online.
SimChemistry
Details
Rating: 4.4/5
Price: Free
Simchemistry is another option available to you if you are looking for strong and powerful chemical drawing software for your study or research-related chemistry projects. This program has 2D molecule dynamic algorithm included and thus can help you draw your chemical shapes and structures easily using your windows PC. Represent the behavior or chemical elements effectively using this software.
Other Chemical Drawing Software for Different Platforms
Among various chemical drawing software available online you can also find platform specific software that are developed specifically for particular platforms like windows, Mac, Android and more. These platform specific software can offer you better performance and chemical drawing facilities due to effective functions and options. So let’s have a look on best chemical structure drawing software available for different platforms.
Best Chemical Drawing Software for Mac – ChemBioDraw
Details
Rating: 4.3/5
Price: Free
ChemBioDraw is a chemical drawing program that allows you to create chemical structures, reactions and pathways in a simple, intuitive way. It can also be used as a database of chemical structures and reactions. The software offers many features including:
- The ability to draw molecules using various templates
- Reaction editing with automatic numbering, reaction arrow direction and reaction arrow lengths
- The ability to save your files in ChemBioDraw format (CBD) and import them into other applications such as Word or Excel
- The ability to view molecule structures in 3D
ChemBioDraw is the first choice pf biologists and chemists as a chemical drawing software in order to create scientifically intelligent drawings. This drawing software has been developed for Mac systems and brings great ease, quality of structures and rich set of chemical tools to create outstanding chemical designs. Get downloaded now.
Best Chemical Drawing Software for Windows – Chemistry Software
Details
Rating: 4.5/5
Price: Free
Chemistry software is a free chemical drawing software offered by ACD/Labs especially for personal, home as well as educational use. This software is ideal to help you create outstanding and even typical chemical drawings representing properties exhibited by various chemical compounds and elements. So create a professional chemical design with this powerful windows chemical drawing software available online.
Best Chemical Drawing Software for Android – ChemDoodle
Details
Rating: 4.2/5
Price: Free Trail Available
ChemDoodle is a chemical structure editor that allows you to create and edit chemical structures using a web browser. It also includes tools for teaching chemistry, including an OpenGL-based 3D molecule viewer with animations, model building, and more. ChemDoodle is one of the best applications for android devices that helps you create professional, high quality and intelligent chemical drawings in 3D. You can draw molecules in 3D and thus represent their behavior clearly. This application also lets you calculate drawn organic structures. Get this ChemDoodle application downloaded online now.
Most Popular Chemical Structure Software – BIOVIA Draw
Details
Rating: 5/5
Price: Free
BIOVIA Draw is a software program used to create gene expression, pathway, and network diagrams. It allows you to build a visual representation of the biological processes that are occurring in your cells.
Because BIOVIA Draw is an easy-to-use program, it can be used by any scientist at any level. However, it is particularly useful for scientists who are new to bioinformatics as they can use BIOVIA Draw to learn how these diagrams work without needing additional knowledge of programming languages or statistics.
The software also has many features that make it easy to use and customize. These features include being able to import data from common file formats such as Excel and SPSS, having the ability to create custom shapes for your diagrams, and having many customizable options for colors and fonts.
BIOVIA Draw is one of the most popular chemical structure software that helps you draw and edit chemical reactions, complex molecules, and more chemical structures. It can manage complex biological entities like registering and retrieve peptides, oligosaccharides, and oligonucleotides. Its documented API enables you to create custom add-ins and drop them as tools, menus, buttons and more. You can also see Injection Molding Software
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Marvin
FreeMacWindowsLinux
Marvin suite is a chemically intelligent desktop toolkit built to help you draw, edit, publish, render, import and export your chemical structures and as well as allowing you to convert between various chemical and graphical file formats. It is free for individual, academic and non-commercial use.
Features:
- Google Chrome Extensions
- Drag n drop
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BKchem
FreeOpen SourceMacWindowsLinux
BKChem is a free (as in free software :o) chemical drawing program. It was conceived and written by Beda Kosata and is currently maintained by Reinis Danne. BKChem is written in Python, an interpreted and very nice programming language. This implies some of the program features: * platform independence – BKChem should run on any platform that Python does.
Features:
- 2D and 3D physics
- Drawing
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Gnome Chemistry Utils
FreeOpen SourceLinux
The Gnome Chemistry Utils include six chemistry related programs: – GChemPaint, a 2D chemical formula editor. – a chemical calculator (computes raw formule, molar weight, mass composition and isotopic pattern). – a molecule 3d viewer using OpenGL to display molecular models. – a crystal structure editor and viewer. – a periodic table of the elements. – a spectrum viewer.
Features:
- Education
- Periodic table
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JChemPaint
FreeOpen SourceMacWindowsLinux
JChemPaint is an editor and viewer for chemical structures in 2D. It is free and open source software, written in Java and so it runs on Windows, Mac OS X, Linux and Unix systems. There is a standalone application (editor), and two varieties of applet (editor and viewer) that can be integrated into web pages.JChemPaint is currently being developed as part of The Chemistry Development Kit, and a Standard Widget Toolkit-based JChemPaint application is being developed, as part of Bioclipse.❤ Love
MollyCule
FreeOpen SourceMacWindowsLinux
MollyCule is a completely free Open Source Chemistry visualization program for MacOS, Linux and Windows. molecule is designed to be a nice, easy to use program to help ordinary people who want to explore Chemistry. It’s probably not ideal for PhD researchers, but it’s great for high school students and undergraduates. Traditionally, chemistry visualisation packages have used keyboards or complicated mouse-gesture systems.❤ Love
MolView
FreeOpen SourceWeb
MolView is an intuitive, Open-Source web-application to make science and education more awesome!❤ Love
XDrawChem
FreeOpen SourceMacWindowsLinux
XDrawChem is a free software program for drawing chemical structural formulas, available for Unix and Mac OS. It is distributed under the GNU GPL. In Microsoft Windows this program is called WinDrawChem.❤ Love
MedChem Designer
FreeWindows
“MedChem Designer 3.0 is a free chemical structure drawing program. MedChem Designer can open SMILES, SDF, MOL, CSK, and RXN file types. Up to 32 compounds can be displayed in one window. Images can be exported in SMILES, SD, MOL, CQF, bitmap, JPG, or PNG formats. Various properties e.g., logP, logD, topological polar surface area (TPSA), can be quickly and easily computed. Additionally, structure images and predicted properties can be exported in Excel format.
- MarvinSketch: MarvinSketch allows users to quickly draw molecules through basic functions on the GUI and advanced functionalities such as sprout drawing, customisable shortcuts, abbreviated groups, default and user-defined templates and context-sensitive popup menus.
**DOWNLOAD THIS RESOURCE IF YOU ARE A MAC USER**
- ChemSketch: ACD/ChemSketch Freeware is a drawing package that allows you to draw chemical structures including organics, organometallics, polymers, and Markush structures. It also includes features such as calculation of molecular properties (e.g., molecular weight, density, molar refractivity etc.), 2D and 3D structure cleaning and viewing, functionality for naming structures (fewer than 50 atoms and 3 rings), and prediction of logP.
**DOWNLOAD THIS RESOURCE IF YOU ARE A MICROSOFT USER**
Conclusion
There are some neat Internet tools for drawing chemical structures online. You have probably use the one called ChemDraw and know the other, newer programs, called ChemDoodle and Chemsketch. Moreover, it appears that there is a bit different program which goes by the name of Cam’s Sketchpad. Let’s take a closer look at each of these programs and see which one is better in terms of affordability, simplicity and organization.