Your First Molecule

Your first molecule

This page walks through drawing ethanol, checking it, and exporting an editable result.

Ethanol is deliberately small: it makes the distinction between a carbon skeleton, an atom label, and an exported chemical record easy to see.

Draw the carbon skeleton

1. Choose File → New if a blank document is not already open.
2. In the bond tools, choose Single Bond.
3. Drag once across the page to create a two-carbon chain. In skeletal notation, both unlabeled endpoints are carbon atoms.
4. Choose Selection Tool and click the molecule. Drag it if you want it centred on the page.

If the geometry looks cramped after an edit, select the molecule and use Structure → Clean up Structure 2D. This is a drawing-layout operation, not a chemistry conversion.

Replace one terminal atom with oxygen

1. With the atom tools, choose oxygen, or use the atom-label editing control on the terminal carbon.
2. Click the terminal atom at one end of the two-carbon chain and set it to O.
3. Leave the other end unlabeled as carbon.

ChemDraft uses the molecule’s atom and bond data for analysis and export. Do not substitute a text object reading “OH” for an atom label when you intend a chemical atom: free text is an annotation, whereas an atom label is part of the structure.

Check the molecule

1. Select the molecule with Selection Tool.
2. Choose Analyze → Molecular Inspector….
3. Read the formula, mass, and other available entries along with their status and method information.
4. Optionally choose Analyze → Validate Selected Structure to request structural validation.

If a property does not apply, ChemDraft should show it as unsupported or otherwise status-bearing. It does not manufacture a fallback value. For details about interpretations and methods, see Analysis and Properties.

Make one visual annotation

1. Choose Text Tool.
2. Click near the molecule and type ethanol.
3. Use Selection Tool to move the annotation separately from the molecule.

The name is a text object; it does not change the molecule’s identity. If you need a structure from a chemical name, use the workflow in Name to Structure rather than treating an annotation as data.

Save and export

1. Choose File → Save and give the document a .chemdraft filename.
2. Choose File → Export… to choose a delivery format such as SVG, PDF, a raster image, CDXML, SDF, or SMILES when available for the current document. MOL export is planned.
3. If you only need a text representation, choose Edit → Copy As → SMILES and paste it into a compatible chemistry tool.

On macOS, save with Cmd+S and export with Shift+Cmd+E; on Windows use Ctrl+S and Shift+Ctrl+E. Keep the native document as your editable source even when you also export a figure.

Next

• Add rings and chains
• Add stereochemistry
• Understand file compatibility