ChemDraw 13
Open the ChemDraw13 program.
A palate should be open with a toolbar on left.
Drawing dehydration of 2-methylcyclohexanol reaction
•Select the cyclohexane ring. This is fourth from the bottom on the right. Move cursor over
palette and depress and hold left mouse to attach pivot point. Move mouse to rotate to desired
position, release left mouse when want to fix in position.
•Next select solid bond tool. This is third down on left.
Position cursor over the carbon of ring to which want a
bond attached. Depress and hold left mouse button to
attach one end. Orient bond with mouse or keypad to
desired orientation. Release touchpad or mouse to fix.
Attach one bond to 2 adjacent carbons. At this point
your drawing should look like this.
Select the
lasso tool. This is at the top left. This will allow you to
select part of a molecule without impacting the rest.
Place arrow at end of one bond. Left Mouse Click, swing
the bond using mouse or keypad.
•There are two ways to place an oxygen at end of one
bond. Either move cursor over Carbon end and simply
type the letter ‘O’. Alternatively may select the text tool
then click on end and type. The text tool is necessary if
a complex attachment is desired such as –Ph-OMe.
•Select Marquee tool from upper right of toolbar. Use to select entire molecule. Drag molecule
to left side of page. This is to give enough room for rest of reaction
•Select arrow tool. By holding down, a variety of arrow styles are available. Be aware that
different arrow styles have different chemical meanings. Select any straight single headed
arrow. Left mouse click to attach tail of arrow, keeping mouse button depressed, drag to
desired length. Release mouse to fix.
•Chemicals over the arrow are either catalyst or reactants. Chemicals under the arrow are
solvent. Reaction conditions are also placed under the arrow. Using the text tool, type “H3PO4”
Note, there is a subscript and a superscript option at upper right. Highlight the “3” then click
“X2”. Repeat for the “4”. Under the arrow either type the actual temperature range of your
reaction or simply indicate heat was added by a capital delta “ “.
•To the right of the arrow, draw one of your products using above instructions. When ready to
draw the next, do not start over but instead with Marquee select the structure just drawn and
copy and paste. Bonds will have to be removed. Select the eraser tool. Erase necessary bonds.
Add necessary bonds. Repeat for third product. Remember that water is also a product.
•To organize the reaction, Select All using Marquee. Then pull down “object”, “Align” and
either “Center” or “bottom”. At this point it should look something like the following.
To import into word.
Select entire reaction with Marquee. Copy (CNTRL +C) then go to Word document and simply
paste (CNTRL+V). Do not need to save drawing separately if saving the word file. When in word,
can amend ChemDraw simply by double clicking on image.
Bad Bond Warning.
Place five bonds on any carbon. You will notice a red ring appears. ChemDraw is telling you that
this is a bad thing.
Cations, Anions, Lone pairs
Draw isobutene.
Move cursor over each end and bend and type “C”. Notice how the
correct number of hydrogen get added. The center carbon will have one H. Select the
chemical bond symbol from middle of right hand column. “ ” Place cursor on center carbon
and click in place. Notice how a hydrogen is automatically removed because carbocation’s have
only three bonds. Lone electrons and anions can be added in a similar fashion.
Reaction Mechanisms.
Using the rules you learned in CHEM 2210, reaction mechanisms can be drawn. Curved arrows
of different dimension are available under the arrow tool.
There are many tutorials available on YouTube and Perkin-Elmer to show you other options.
References: Sigma-Aldrich Help http://www.safcglobal.com/help-welcome/productsearch/sub-structure-search.html (September 15, 2013)