# ChemDraw

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Software for drawing chemical structures

ChemDraw Developer Revvity Signals Operating system macOS, Microsoft Windows Type Scientific License Proprietary Website ChemDraw on Revvity Signals website

**ChemDraw™** is a [molecule editor](/source/Molecule_editor) and communication suite, for the management, reporting, and presentation of chemistry research and discoveries.

ChemDraw was originally conceived in 1985 by Selena "Sally" Evans, her husband [David A. Evans](/source/David_A._Evans), and Stewart Rubenstein.[1][2] In July 1985, ChemDraw was demonstrated at the Gordon Research Conference on Reactions & Processes in New Hampshire, USA, an event remembered by many chemists, such was the breakthrough provided by the software.[1][2][3]

Later that same year, Stewart’s younger brother, Michael, began developing Chem3D, a companion program to ChemDraw that allows users to draw three-dimensional chemical structures.[2] ChemDraw’s popularity led to the launch of cheminformatics company Cambridge Scientific Computing, later renamed CambridgeSoft, to further develop the program.[3] CambridgeSoft was sold to [PerkinElmer](/source/PerkinElmer) in 2011.[4] In 2022, PerkinElmer split their businesses, and the Life Science and Diagnostics divisions became [Revvity](/source/Revvity), Inc.[5] Today, ChemDraw is developed by [Revvity Signals Software](https://revvitysignals.com/), the informatics division of Revvity.

ChemDraw is augmented by a number of desktop applications such as Chem3D (3D modelling) ChemFinder (dataset analysis), and ChemDraw for Excel.[6] In 2024, ChemDraw+, a web-based application, was launched as part of the new product Signals ChemDraw, with full integration with other Revvity Signals solutions.[7]

## Features of ChemDraw

ChemDraw is available in three different offerings: ChemDraw Prime, which contains the core functionalities, ChemDraw Professional, and Signals™ ChemDraw:[8]

**ChemDraw Prime**

- Desktop application

- Efficient chemical drawing with hot-keys and shortcuts

- [Structure](/source/Chemical_structure) and reaction clean-up

- Apply styling according to publisher policies

- Property predictions ([pKa](/source/PKa), [logP](/source/Partition_coefficient), logS, etc)

**ChemDraw Professional**

- Desktop application

- [Name](/source/Chemical_name)-to-[structure](/source/Chemical_structure) and [structure](/source/Chemical_structure)-to-[name](/source/Chemical_name) conversion

- [Structure](/source/Chemical_structure) highlighting for atoms, bonds, and rings

- 1H and 13C [NMR](/source/NMR) spectrum prediction

- Representation of peptides and oligonucleotides following the [HELM](/source/Hierarchical_editing_language_for_macromolecules) standard

- Integration with [ChemACX](https://support.revvitysignals.com/hc/en-us/articles/32761356400532-Release-Announcement-ChemACX-24-24-4), [CAS SciFinder®](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemical_Abstracts_Service#SciFinder), [Elsevier Reaxys®](https://www.elsevier.com/en-gb/products/reaxys), [Google scholar](/source/Google_scholar)/[patents](/source/Google_patents), and other scientific data sources

**Signals ChemDraw**

- [SaaS](/source/SaaS) (Software as a Service) application available from a secured cloud-based environment

- Management and sharing of collections of chemical drawings

- Capability to find and reuse chemical drawings hidden in work documents

- On-line management of licenses and user access rights

- Automatic deployment of latest release

In addition to the desktop version of ChemDraw, there is a web-based version and library known as **ChemDraw JS** (formerly **ChemDraw Direct**).[9][10][11][12] The web-based app was previously freely available as late as 2022, whereas use as a library has required special licensing.[11][13][12]

## File format

The native file formats for ChemDraw are the binary [CDX](/source/CDX_Format) and the preferred [XML](/source/XML)-based [CDXML](/source/CDXML) formats. ChemDraw can also import from, and export to, [MOL](/source/SDF_(chemistry_file_format)#Molfile), [SDF](/source/SDF_(chemistry_file_format)#SDF), and [SKC](/source/ISIS%2FDraw) chemical file formats. Images can be exported to [GIF](/source/GIF), [JPEG](/source/JPEG), [PNG](/source/PNG), [TIFF](/source/TIFF), and [SVG](/source/SVG). 3D printing of molecules can also be performed with the [3MF](/source/3MF) format.[14]

## See also

- [Molecule editor](/source/Molecule_editor)

## References

1. ^ [***a***](#cite_ref-reflections_1-0) [***b***](#cite_ref-reflections_1-1) Halford, Bethany (2014). "Reflections On ChemDraw". *[C&EN](/source/C%26EN)*. **92** (33): 26–27. [doi](/source/Doi_(identifier)):[10.1021/cen-09233-scitech1](https://doi.org/10.1021%2Fcen-09233-scitech1).

1. ^ [***a***](#cite_ref-history_2-0) [***b***](#cite_ref-history_2-1) [***c***](#cite_ref-history_2-2) Evans, David A. (2014-10-13). ["History of the Harvard ChemDraw Project"](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/anie.201405820). *Angewandte Chemie International Edition*. **53** (42): 11140–11145. [doi](/source/Doi_(identifier)):[10.1002/anie.201405820](https://doi.org/10.1002%2Fanie.201405820).

1. ^ [***a***](#cite_ref-birthday_3-0) [***b***](#cite_ref-birthday_3-1) Yarnell, Amanda (2015). ["Happy Birthday ChemDraw"](https://doi.org/10.1021%2Fcen-09327-editorial). *[C&EN](/source/C%26EN)*. **93** (27): 3. [doi](/source/Doi_(identifier)):[10.1021/cen-09327-editorial](https://doi.org/10.1021%2Fcen-09327-editorial).

1. **[^](#cite_ref-sale_4-0)** ["Announcing CambridgeSoft from Perkin Elmer"](https://web.archive.org/web/20140911001815/http://www.cambridgesoft.com/pki/). Archived from [the original](http://www.cambridgesoft.com/pki/) on 2014-09-11. Retrieved 2014-09-09.

1. **[^](#cite_ref-split_5-0)** ["PerkinElmer Completes Transformation to Become Revvity"](https://finance.yahoo.com/news/perkinelmer-completes-transformation-become-revvity-154135634.html). Retrieved 2025-05-14.

1. **[^](#cite_ref-6)** ["ChemDraw & ChemOffice+ Products"](https://support.revvitysignals.com/hc/en-us/sections/360010804431-ChemDraw-ChemOffice-Products). Retrieved 14 May 2025.

1. **[^](#cite_ref-7)** ["Signals ChemDraw - What's new"](https://revvitysignals.com/signals-chemdraw-whats-new). Retrieved 14 May 2025.

1. **[^](#cite_ref-8)** ["ChemDraw/Signals ChemDraw"](https://revvitysignals.com/sites/default/files/2024-11/rs-chart-chemdraw-signalschemdraw-23.0-which-is-right-for-me-%20%282%29.pdf) (PDF). Retrieved 14 May 2025.

1. **[^](#cite_ref-Revvity2025a_9-0)** ["ChemDraw JS: What is ChemDraw JS and what can I do with it?"](https://support.revvitysignals.com/hc/en-us/articles/10746800139028-ChemDraw-JS-What-is-ChemDraw-JS-and-what-can-I-do-with-it). *Revvity Signals*. 10 November 2025. Retrieved 21 February 2026.

1. **[^](#cite_ref-Revvity2025b_10-0)** ["Release Announcement"](https://support.revvitysignals.com/hc/en-us/articles/38809304211220-Release-Announcement-ChemDraw-JS-v25-0-1). *Revvity Signals*. 27 June 2025. Retrieved 21 February 2026.

1. ^ [***a***](#cite_ref-Otálvaro2022_11-0) [***b***](#cite_ref-Otálvaro2022_11-1) Otálvaro, Felipe (9 August 2022). ["Merging Drawing-Based Questions with Automatic Assessment in Organic Chemistry Using Smartphones"](https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.jchemed.2c00278). *Journal of Chemical Education*. **99** (8): 3044–3048. [doi](/source/Doi_(identifier)):[10.1021/acs.jchemed.2c00278](https://doi.org/10.1021%2Facs.jchemed.2c00278). [ISSN](/source/ISSN_(identifier)) [0021-9584](https://search.worldcat.org/issn/0021-9584). Retrieved 21 February 2026.

1. ^ [***a***](#cite_ref-Leskoff_12-0) [***b***](#cite_ref-Leskoff_12-1) ["Working with ChemDraw JS"](https://www.leskoff.com/s02035-0). *Leskoff*. Retrieved 21 February 2026.

1. **[^](#cite_ref-KhokhlovFedorovSosnin2021_13-0)** Krasnov L, Khokhlov I, Fedorov MV, Sosnin S (July 2021). ["Transformer-based artificial neural networks for the conversion between chemical notations"](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8292511). *Sci Rep*. **11** (1): 14798. [doi](/source/Doi_(identifier)):[10.1038/s41598-021-94082-y](https://doi.org/10.1038%2Fs41598-021-94082-y). [PMC](/source/PMC_(identifier)) [8292511](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8292511). [PMID](/source/PMID_(identifier)) [34285269](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34285269).

1. **[^](#cite_ref-14)** ["Release Announcement - ChemDraw/ChemOffice v21.0"](https://support.revvitysignals.com/hc/en-us/articles/4586496010004-Release-Announcement-ChemDraw-ChemOffice-v21-0). Retrieved 14 May 2025.

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Adapted from the Wikipedia article [ChemDraw](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ChemDraw) by Wikipedia contributors ([contributor history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ChemDraw?action=history)). Available under [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Changes may have been made.