chemdraw

[elzaza]

hi! as a chemist, I use the application "chemdraw" to draw molecules, reactions, etc. The problem is : Neo office doesn't recognise the .cdx objects so i can't use my drawings in my neo office documents.. do you think it could be possible to add a new feature on Neo to able chemdraw documents to be inserted in Neo documents..?? i know it's possible with microsoft word, but i'd rather use Neo if i can..

[pluby]

From my quick read of the ChemDraw website, it appears that .cdx files are only understood by ChemDraw. Microsoft Office does not actually open the files. Instead, ChemDraw has figured out how to intregrate itself into Office so that Office offloads opening of the file to the ChemDraw application plugin.

Our donation funding and available developer labor is very limited so trying to build a reverse-engineered copy of a third-party commercial application is something that is beyond our resources to do.

What I would recommend is that you lobby ChemDraw to make a plugin for NeoOffice and OpenOffice.org. Like Microsoft Office, both NeoOffice and OpenOffice.org allow commercial applications to integrate themselves into our application as a plugin. ChemDraw has obviously felt it was worth investing in writing such a plugin for Microsoft Office so the real key is to convince them that it is a worthwhile investment to support the other major office suites: NeoOffice and OpenOffice.org.

Patrick

[elzaza]

thanks for your answer! i'm afraid it'll probably be difficult to "lobby" chemdraw by myself but i can try to suggest them what you told me..