Using Chem Sketch to Draw Molecules

Chem Sketch is freeware program for drawing chemical structures and is convenient for drawing organic structures. I
would suggest downloading and playing with drawing structures a bit before using it for your homework. When you open
the program, the window will look as below. On the upper toolbar there are drawing tools for stereochemistry and bonds
as well as a number of drop down menus. At the left are atoms that you can select to draw. At the right is a short list of
substituents and rings that you can add to structures. By default the carbon atom is selected (left circled)


Clicking on the page causes a methane molecule to appear. When an atom is clicked on the screen the program by
default adds all hydrogens needed to fill the valence shell of the atom. Clicking on the methane molecule adds another
carbon to make ethane. Clicking again adds carbon to give propane. Selecting Nitrogen (circled) from the left and
clicking on one of the carbons changes it to nitrogen and adjusts the number of hydrogens for that atom.

You can also add substituents in several ways. You can select Templates-> Table of Radicals, which will give you a list of
common groups that can be added. The bar on the right of the drawing area is a short list of these. In the example
below, we have selected a cyclohexane ring. Simply click on the atom to which you want it attached to produce the
structure at right.

One of the drawbacks of this program is in drawing lone pairs as in Lewis Dot symbols and structures, but there are ways
of doing it. I will give an example for drawing methane. Draw methane as before by clicking on the Carbon symbol on the
left and then on the page. Next select your drawing using the lasso or box tool on the toolbar at the upper left (Circled).
Then select Tools->Add Explicit Hydrogens and your drawing should now appear with bonds as shown below at right.

Next, select Tools->Structure Properties and a dialog box will appear appear with bonds as shown below at right. Select
the Bond tab and change the bond color to white so the bonds will be invisible as shown below at right. The bonds are
still there. You just cant see them. However, this will be an advantage as we will see below.

Next, select Templates->Template window and a dialog box will appear appear with various drawing templates available.
Select Lewis Structures from the drop down window tab and a group of example Lewis structures will be displayed as
shown below.


At this point, you could simply select the methane structure which is shown, but these are simply drawings and cannot be
modified. You should select either the horizontal electron pair or vertical electron pair as circled above. Note that you
can do single, double, or triple bonds at several angles. It does not matter whether you do the vertical or horizontal lone
pairs first, but your methane molecule should look as it does below at right when you are finished.


It is quite easy to go from one molecule to another once you have one drawn. We can take methane and turn it into
ammonia by simply changing the central atom to Nitrogen selecting the structure button (above circled) and then the
nitrogen button (below circled) and clicking on the Carbon atom as shown below. Since the four hydrogens are attached,
the program knows that the nitrogen must have a positive charge and is the ammonium ion. To change to ammonia,
simply delete one of the hydrogens to give the structure at right.

You can change the ammonia molecule to hydronium ion and water in the same way as shown below. Again, the
program knows how many bonds are required for each atom and assigns charges as appropriate.