CambridgeSoft

CambridgeSoft
Reviewed by Simon Dyall
Queen Mary, University of London

The latest version of ChemOffice Ultra has been significantly improved in all areas. The most apparent changes are the improved connectivity between Chem3D and ChemDraw. Chem3D now has a ChemDraw panel, which allows both applications to run simultaneously. The Chem3D desktop also has new toolbars and an improved layout. Additions include a model hierarchy tree control to alter the display properties of selected parts of the molecule, and a new dihedral driver to perform conformational analysis and display the results graphically. In ChemDraw, the TLC Plate tool now has the option for custom spots and transparent backgrounds and the mass fragmentation tool has new dissociation and retrosysnthesis tools. There is also support for the import and export of more file formats, such as gif, tiff and bmp. Another application worth mentioning is ChemSAR/Excel, which is an add-in for Excel spreadsheets. ChemSAR/Excel is used to create databases of physico-chemical properties of molecules, and the ChemSAR wizard makes the whole process quick and painless.

Overall, ChemOffice 2005 is a vast improvement on an already excellent software suite. If you are looking for an integrated system to improve the quality of structural and chemical analysis, data handling and storage then ChemOffice Ultra is second to none.

To find out more about the newly released ChemDraw Ultra 9.0 and ChemOffice Ultra 2005 suite, contact CambridgeSoft.