Education and Scholarly Communication

Chemistry Add-in For Word:

semantic chemistry authoring made easy
Microsoft Research, in partnership with the Unilever Centre Fast Facts
for Molecular Science Informatics at the University of Cam- Project Principals:
bridge, is introducing a powerful tool, which adds a num-
ber of chemistry-related features to Microsoft Office Word. University of Cambridge
Dr. Peter Murray-Rust
With the Chemistry Add-in, you can create inline “chemistry Dr. Joe Townsend
zones” to represent chemical data; display chemical informa- Jim Downing
tion in a variety of ways; display print-quality 2-D chemical
structures; and store and expose chemical information in a
semantically rich manner. Microsoft Research
Lee Dirks

E
Alex Wade
very discipline has its own language. And being able to communi- Oscar Naim
cate and collaborate in a discipline-specific language is essential to
scientific research, especially in an environment characterized by
staggering volumes of data. Web Site:
research.microsoft.com/chem4word
In chemistry, not only is there a specific language, but a specific lan-
guage with specific symbols. Empowering those symbols by giving
them the ability to communicate across technologies and formats, as
well as making authoring and semantic annotations simple, is at the
heart of the Chemistry Add-in for Word.

Microsoft External Research

The Microsoft External Research
Division within Microsoft Research
partners with academia, government
and industry to advance computer
science, education and scientific
research aimed at helping address
some of the world’s most urgent and
significant social and technologi-
cal challenges. Along with investing
cash, software, hardware and research
expertise to enable ground-breaking
projects worldwide, Microsoft External
Research is committed to providing
the advanced technologies and ser-
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Name and
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the same chemical
h i l shown
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document,
t along
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ith th
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Chem- vices needed to support every stage
istry Navigator; which displays all of the chemistry zones within the current document. of the research process. Efforts are
focused in four research areas—includ-
ing Education and Scholarly Commu-
The Chemistry Add-in for Word makes it easier for students, chemists nication, which explores new tools and
curricula that empower educators and
and researchers to insert and modify chemical information, such as students and develops software that
labels, formulas and 2D depictions, from within Microsoft Office Word. supports the entire scholarly research
It harnesses the power of Chemical Markup Language (CML) which is a and communications process.
Chemistry-specific XML, making it possible to not only author chemical Microsoft External Research
content in Word, but also to include the data behind those structures http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/
collaboration/
as well. Put simply, the Chemistry Add-in and
CML help to makes chemistry documents open,
readable and easily accessible, not just to other
humans, but to other technologies as well.
In addition to authoring functionality, The Chem-
istry Add-in allows end-user denotation of inline
“chemical zones,” the rendering of high-quality
and print-ready visual depictions of chemical
structures and the ability to store and expose
chemical information in a semantically rich way
across the global chemistry community.
The product of an on-going collaboration be-
tween Microsoft and Dr. Peter Murray-Rust, Dr.
Joe Townsend, and Jim Downing from the Unile-
“The Chemistry Add-in provides
a simple and flexible way to
include chemical information
in a Word document.”
—Dr Peter Murray-Rust
University of Cambridge
ver Centre for Molecular Science Informatics at
the University of Cambridge, the the Chemistry
Add-in project took inspiration from the math-
ematic equation authoring capabilities in Word
2007. We have also taken advantage of the user-
interface extensibility and XML features already
included in Office 2007 and Office 2010, in order
to provide a demonstration of the power of Mi-
crosoft Office as a platform.
For this project, Microsoft Research collaborated
with key members in the field of Chemistry.
Further guiding the development was Microsoft
External Research’s commitment to supporting
the scholarly communication lifecycle, which calls
for software and related services that enable the
coordinated and seamless exchange of data and
information from the authoring phase through
publication and long-term preservation.
The 2D Editor showing the Periodic Table of Elements lookup.
With the Chemistry Add-in, you can:
• Create inline chemistry zones, which are con-
trols that contain information about a mol-
ecule, to represent chemical data.
• Create a chemistry zone by typing a simple
common name such as “water”, and then use
the Chemistry Add-in to convert it to your
preferred representation.
• Switch from a molecule’s trivial name to its
concise formula to its 2-D representation.
• Represent molecules by displaying a print-
quality 2-D structure diagram, and use the
built-in editor to modify the structure.
• Import molecules from other chemical edit-
ing tools, and save edited molecules in the
Gallery for use across documents.
• Store and expose chemical information in a
semantically rich manner.
The Chemistry Add-in supports publishing and
data-mining scenarios for authors, readers, pub-
lishers, and other vendors across the chemical
information community.
Download the Chemistry Add-in for free at
research.microsoft.com/chem4word.
This document is for informational purposes only.
MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN
THIS SUMMARY. © 2010 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
Microsoft, Office and Word are either registered trademarks or trade-
marks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other
countries. The names of actual companies and products mentioned
herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.
Part No. 098-111428