In this section, you will learn how to get started with ChemSketch. Click to see a video demo of how to build a moleculer and view it in 3D Viewer . In order to play these videos, you should have flashplayer plugin installed. You can download the plugin from

1. Open both ChemSketch and 3D Viewer
Start Menu -> Programs -> ACDLabs Freeware 10.0 -> ChemSketch
Repeat the above step and this time open Start Menu -> Programs -> ACDLabs Freeware 10.0 -> 3D Viewer

2. Hit "OK" a few times to get through all the startup windows, including tips and registration.

3. You should now see a blank ChemSketch page. In the upper left corner notice two mode options, Structure and Draw. Click on Structure mode to begin with.


4. In Structure mode you may build molecules. Begin by selecting an element from the left hand edge of the window (some default elements will be listed vertically). For example, if we want to create amethanol, here are the steps:
a. click on "C" and then click once in the workspace to create methane , CH4.
b. click on "O" and place the cursor on the "C" atom of methane, then click, drag, and release the mouse button to create methanol, CH3OH.

5. In order to adjusts bond lengths and angles, on the top menu bar, click on "Tools", followed by "Clean Structure".
Next, click on Tools-> 3D Structure Optimization to optimize 3D Structiure.
The program can automatically generate the name for the structure. This feature may help students with nomenclature. Click on Tools -> Generate -> Name for Structure.

6. Notice that you will now have three buttons at the bottom left of ChemSketch to move between the sketch page and the 3D veiw page. Click "copy to 3D" so that molecules will not be rendered in 3D veiw.


7. To minimize the geometry, click on near the upper right of the screen. You can always click and drag the molecule to rotate it in three dimensions.

8. To Compute the bond distance, click on , then click on two neighbor atoms you want to measure. For example, click the C atom and hold down the shift key to click on the O atom. A window should open that provides the CO bond distance. Record this number in the Table on the next page, and repeat the above process for the other bonds indicated in the Table.

9. To calculate bond angle, click on , then choose the angle of those atoms you try to measure. For example, click on the C atom. Hold down the Shift key and click on the O atom, then the H atom. A window should open that provides the C-O-H bond angle. Record this value in the Table. Compare your values with the literature values given at the bottom of the Table.

Value	rC-H(Å)	rC-O(Å)	rO-H(Å)	angle C-O-H (°)
ACD ChemSketch
Literature	1.096 ± 0.01	1.427 ± 0.007	0.956 ± 0.015	108.9 ± 2.0

10. Experiment with the various Display Option buttons: and the various rotate, translate, and zoom buttons: Try the two different View buttons ( ) and see what effect they have. These buttons toggle on and off by clicking on them. You can also change the color of the background by clicking.

11. Save the file
On the top menu bar, click File -> Save As. In the Save As window, navigate to a location to save the file where you can retrieve it later (probably the share drive). In the "File name" line, type "Methanol" and choose "MDL Molfiles (*.mol)" in the "Save as type" line. Later, we may perform calculations on methanol using a different program.