How can I perform roundtrip editing on a Mac with Office 2011+ and ChemBioDraw 14?

October 08, 2021 23:03

Date Posted: 2015-02-23
Product: ChemDraw

Problem:

Solution:

You can copy structures from ChemDraw into PowerPoint and have them display correctly. You can also copy the structure in PowerPoint to bring back to ChemDraw, but sometimes this results in a graphical image of the structure, rather than a “live” structure than can be edited further/p>

ChemDraw uses special meta-data (originally inserted by ChemDraw itself) on the clipboard data with the structure. This meta-data has all the information required to build a structure correctly in ChemDraw.

When you copy a structure from PowerPoint back to ChemDraw, it searches for that special meta-data and uses it to draw the structure. However, when a ChemDraw structure is pasted into PowerPoint inside a container that is meant to hold chart/image/tables/smart art etc., the special meta-data is removed by the PowerPoint image container. Thus, when it is read back into ChemDraw from PowerPoint the required meta-data is missing, so the structure can only be pasted as an image.

The workaround when pasting a structure into PowerPoint is to avoid pasting it into an image container. In this way the meta-data is retained and the structure can be copied back to ChemDraw for further editing.