Build Your First Publication Figure: Structure to Export, End to End
The tools in Chem+ are most powerful together. To show how they connect, let's build a simple publication figure from nothing, touching four modules on the way, and finish with a file you could drop into a manuscript.
Step 1 — Get your structure in ChemDraw
Open ChemDraw and, instead of drawing from scratch, use Compound Search to pull in a starting structure by name or formula. Adjust it with the bond, ring, and stereochemistry tools until it's exactly the molecule you mean — wedges and dashes included, since configuration usually matters in a figure.
Step 2 — Sanity-check it in 3D
Before committing, open the structure in Miew 3D and rotate it. A structure that reads fine in 2D occasionally hides a clash or an ambiguity that only shows up when you can turn it. Better to catch it now than in review.
Step 3 — Compose on the Canvas
Bring the structure onto the Canvas and build the rest of the figure around it:
- Drag in glassware or equipment from the Elements panel if the figure needs apparatus.
- Let snapping keep everything aligned to the grid and to each other.
- Add labels — including numbers straight from a calculator if the figure reports a value.
- Group related pieces so a pathway or assembly moves as one.
Step 4 — Export at full resolution
Export a high-resolution PNG for a journal or poster, or an SVG if the figure needs to scale. Both come out publication-ready by default, so there's no downscaling step to remember.
The point
None of these steps is hard on its own. What makes it fast is that they're one workspace — search, verify, compose, export — with no exporting-and-reimporting between separate apps. That's the whole idea behind putting these modules in the same place.
