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ChemSketch™

Chemical Structure Drawing Software

Try It or Buy It Request a Consultation or Demo
ChemSketch™ Overview

Draw Molecular Structures and Communicate Scientific Ideas

ACD/ChemSketch is a molecular structure drawing application with all the reporting features you need. ChemSketch is used by millions of scientists worldwide.

ChemSketch also calculates a variety of molecular descriptors and will generate IUPAC names for small molecules.

  • Draw chemical structures
  • Calculate molecular descriptors
  • Generate IUPAC names
  • Create professional reports
Benefits

Advanced Structure Drawing Software

Easy to Use

Comprehensive Structure Editor

High Quality Output

Affordable

Draw molecular structures, chemical reactions, schema, and biomolecules (peptide sequences) with ease

How it Works

Draw Structures Quickly and Easily

  • 1 Draw a molecule with C-C bonds by clicking and dragging in the Structure window.
  • 2 Edit bonds or atoms with convenient tools, then clean your structure or rotate to see different views.
  • 3 Calculate properties, generate the IUPAC name, or further draw additional structures to create a chemical reaction for your report or publication.

Learn how to draw carbon chains, add heteroatoms, rearrange structures, generate IUPAC names, in this introductory video.

Customer Reviews

ChemSketch has been downloaded by >2.5 million users worldwide.

“I find the ACD/ChemSketch software to be very intuitive. Furthermore, it appears to seamlessly integrate with other Microsoft Office programs, such as Word.”

Thomas J. Siepmann

Product Features

Features of ChemSketch

  • Draw molecular structures such as organic molecules, organometallics, biomolecules, polymers, 2D and 3D structure representations, delocalized Markush structures, peptide sequences
  • Edit structures to customize the chemical bond type, stereo configuration, atom type and charge, radical label, atom numbering, and more
  • Easily draw reactions and complex chemical schema (including biotransformation maps)
    • Label reaction arrows with specific experimental conditions
    • Associate atoms in reactant to product schemes with atom-atom mapping
  • Insert pre-drawn templates of amino acids, aromatics, carbohydrates, steroids, sugars, and more
  • Use graphical templates to insert objects including molecular orbitals, Lewis structures, Newman projections, laboratory equipment, and more
  • Generate structures from InChI or SMILES strings, or copy/paste from ChemDraw
  • Search the Dictionary of >170,000 systematic, trivial, and trade names
  • Generate suggested tautomeric forms of your drawn structure
  • Generate all possible structures for a given Markush representation
  • Produce an optimized 3D model of your 2D structure
  • Import and export structure files in a variety of standard file formats.
    Review the list of supported formats
Deployment/Integration Options

Looking for a Replacement for ChemDraw?

ChemSketch is a popular alternative to the ChemDraw molecular editor, offering all the time-saving shortcuts, graphical templates, and communication tools you are used to.

Making the change couldn’t be easier!

Simply copy/paste, edit, or open existing ChemDraw (*.cdx) files, and save them in ChemSketch.

Want to Provide ChemSketch throughout Your Organization?

Many organizations and educational institutions conveniently provide ChemSketch site-wide, deployed on multiple computers for hundreds of users. Get in touch to learn more about this option.

Pricing

A Complete Software Package for Drawing Chemical Structures

All prices in USD. Exchange rate fluctuations may occur. If you prefer to purchase in your local currency, please contact us for a quote.

Verify your status as an academic/student for discount pricing, or contact us to discuss your eligibility.

  • Software License (1 year maintenance included) – $819.00
  • Software License (2 years maintenance included) – $949.00
  • Software License (3 years maintenance included) – $1,089.00
  • Subscription License (Maintenance included, billed annually until cancelled) – $320.00
  • 7 Day Free Trial – $0.00

Try It or Buy It Request a Consultation or Demo

Operating System Requirements

  • Microsoft Windows 10 (x64)
  • Microsoft Windows 11 (x64)

Hardware Requirements

  • Microsoft Windows compatible PC with minimum 2-core CPU
  • 4 GB or more RAM
  • Minimum of 40 GB of disk space
What's New!

What's New in ChemSketch v2024

  • Use keyboard shortcuts to modify bonds and atoms, and resize or rotate objects
  • Improved file management includes ability to save a temporary copy of your file, and preview files before opening

Read the Full List of What’s New

ChemSketch Freeware

Free Software for Drawing Chemical Structures

Are you looking for our free structure drawing software for academic or personal use? Please note: use of ChemSketch Freeware is explicitly prohibited in a commercial organization.

Download ChemSketch Freeware

Learn More about ChemSketch
Blog

What are Markush structures, and how can I draw them

A Markush structure represents a group of related chemical compounds, commonly used in patents, structural elucidation, metabolite identification, and mixture representation. It allows variations in substituents, positions, frequencies, and homologies, streamlining patent claims and ensuring broad protection. Learn how ChemSketch makes it easy to draw and enumerate Markush structures.
Movie

Draw and Edit Reaction Mechanisms with ChemSketch

Learn how to draw and customize your reactions in ChemSketch. Add lone pairs of electrons, curly arrows, reaction arrows, and edit the drawing properties.
Press Releases

ACD/Labs’ Educational Software for Drawing Chemical Structures Achieves New Milestone

Over 2.5 million users have downloaded ChemSketch Freeware, the academic chemical drawing software from ACD/Labs
Blog

How to Draw Better Chemical Structures and Reactions with ChemSketch

Drawing chemical structures is essential to scientific communication. Upgrade your chemical structure drawing with this guide.
Blog

How to Use ChemSketch in the Classroom

Use ChemSketch to teach structure drawing. Teach students about stereochemistry, Lewis structures, nomenclature, and molecular properties. Create reports to share your work.
Movie

ChemSketch Overview

Do you need to draw chemical structures for your school, research, or work? ChemSketch has all the tools you need!…
Article

Cutting ‘pain points’ can streamline chemical reporting

Jesse Harris offers advice on how to wrangle with a stressful, complicated process for better results and fewer headaches.
Article

Five tactics for upgrading your reporting process

Reporting is an unglamorous but necessary part of pharmaceutical and chemical research and manufacturing. Jesse Harris gives five key tactics…
Webinar

The Secrets to Getting More Out of Your Chemical Drawing Software

A. Yee, ACD/Labs

Unlock the secrets to getting the most value from your chemical drawing software without spending more money.
Blog

How to Save Time and Increase the Accuracy of Your Chemical Reporting Process

Reporting is an essential part of a chemist’s job, and can often be stressful. Luckily, tools are available to simplify and automate your documentation process. This article introduces reporting tools available in ACD/Labs software, and how they can help make your life a little easier.
Blog

Enhanced stereochemistry labels: advanced techniques for indicating stereoconfigurations

Chemical structure drawings include many conventions for indicating configurations, the simplest of which is probably the dashed and solid wedges convention; but there are some limitations it doesn’t fully resolve. Read on for further explanation.
Webinar

Boost Your Biologics Research with Chemically Intelligent Software

E. Randle, Digital Lab Consulting

Biopharmaceuticals have boomed in recent years, with innovative researchers transforming complex biomolecules into effective therapeutics. Unfortunately, many of the common…
Article

Implementation of Interactive Learning Media on Chemical Materials

This article highlights the use of ACD/ChemSketch to assist in teaching chemistry concepts to high school, undergraduate, and graduate chemistry…
Blog

5 things you need to STOP doing in your lab | Gain time and be awesome at your job

There just doesn’t seem to be enough hours in the day to get everything done. There are ways to gain time and be able to do more but they can be difficult to identify because until we’re exposed to them we carry on as we always have. If you are still doing any of the things discussed here, then there are ways you can gain hours in your day and even do your job better than you are right now!
Movie

Creating a User Structure Template

Quickly create schemes and figures for reports and presentations with your own structure templates. 2.5mins
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