ChemDraw FAQs

Microsoft fixed this problem in MS Office 2004 and in a 10.1.6 update. You can download the 10.1.6 update from Microsoft's web site:

http://www.microsoft.com/mac/downloads.aspx?pid=download&location=/mac/download/officex/update_1016.xml&secid=5&ssid=16&flgnosysreq=True

The disappearing atom labels problem does not occur when using MS Office 98, 2001, 10.1.6, or 2004. If upgrading or downgrading MS Office is not an option, the work around would be to transfer the Word document and the ChemDraw documents across platform separately, then reassemble on the Mac.

Other options that may or may not work all the time:

1. Translate the Windows Word or PowerPoint document with MacLinkPlus into Word or PowerPoint 5 format (MacLinkPlus 13: Version 11 in Classic was used). It should then open in Office X with the atom labels intact.

2. PowerPoint users might be to open the PowerPoint Windows document in Apple's KeyNote program for the Mac. In some cases, KeyNote does not have problems with ChemDraw structures when opening a PowerPoint Windows document.

3. Open the Word document in OpenOffice and the labels show up. Save the file and now open in Word X and the labels show up:

http://porting.openoffice.org/mac/ooo-osx_downloads.html

This error has to do with the Microsoft .NET Framework. Microsoft has many tech notes on this issue. Try the following first:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;308096

If that does not help, try:

http://blogs.msdn.com/astebner/archive/2004/11/10/255346.aspx

If this does not help, try deleting the contents of your %TEMP% folder. In other words, open up C:\Documents and Settings\your_username\Local Settings\Temp\ and delete the contents. Now retest our installer.

If this does not help, the next step is to try installing a newer version of MSXML, restarting the computer, and then retrying our installer:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=3144b72b-b4f2-46da-b4b6-c5d7485f2b42&DisplayLang=en

For Windows Vista and Windows 7

It’s a Windows Installer error (as it could not access VBScript run time for custom action). Vista for some reason doesn’t register VBScript, please try the following.

1. Select Command Prompt from the Start menu (Start > All Programs > Accessories)

2. Right click on the Command Prompt and select Run as administrator from the context menu

3. Type the following in the command prompt present in the “Administrator:Command Prompt’ window one by one.

cd %windir%\system32

regsvr32 vbscript.dll

4. You will get a “RegSvr32” dialog box with the message “DllRegisterServer in vbscript.dll succeeded”

5. Now retest the problem.

For Windows XP and Windows 2000

Please download and install the Windows Script 5.6 for Windows XP and 2000 from the following link and then retest the problem.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=C717D943-7E4B-4622-86EB-95A22B832CAA&displaylang=en&Hash=CC5YJ3C

Note:

This download installs Microsoft Windows Script containing Visual Basic Script Edition (VBScript.) Version 5.6, JScript Version 5.6, Windows Script Components, Windows Script Host 5.6, and Windows Script Runtime Version 5.6.

When you first launch the program, you will see a licensing and registration dialog box.

Copy and paste the "Host Name" and the "Machine ID" from this registration dialog box into an email addressed to pathworks@cambridgesoft.com We will reply with your license key that you will paste into the license key field and then click on the Start PathWorks button.

Once you fill in your name and a valid serial number, the “Activate Later”, “Activate over the Internet” and “Activate by Phone/Fax/Email” buttons will go from grayed out to active. If for some reason, you choose not to Activate now, you can choose the Activate Later button and the installation will continue. However, each time you launch one of the programs installed, you will see this prompt, which means entering your name and serial number each time.

If you are connected to the Internet, and have no firewalls running, you can choose the “Activate over Internet” button. If you have any problems with Activate over Internet, use the Activate by Phone/Fax/Email instead.

Clicking on Activate by Phone/Fax/Email will cause a web page to appear that looks like:

Please note that if you have Windows XP SP2 installed, the buttons on this page will not work until you click on the new Internet Explorer Information bar and choose “Allow Blocked Content”:

Activate Online is really the same as the “Activate over Internet” button on the previous screen. You can try it again, but most likely you will need to use either the “Activate by Email” or “Activate by Phone/Fax” button. If you are connected to the Internet, but are having problems using the “Online” option, use the “Activate by Email” button. Clicking the “Email” button will open up a web page that directs you to email the contents of the page to activate@cambridgesoft.com after filling in any blank fields:

Please be sure to include all of the information in the page above from “Serial Number” down to “Email Address” in the email you send to the “activate” address. Your information will be processed, and a return email will be sent to you that includes your Activation Code.

The form is very similar for the “Phone/Fax” option:

Fill in the information requested on this form. Print out the form, and then either call the number listed on this page or fax it to the fax listed. Once the information is processed, and email will be sent to the address you provided with your Activation Code. Once you receive your Activation Code, you will go back to the first screen and type your Activation code in the space provided and then click on the “Activate” button just underneath the field where you typed the Activation code. Once activated, the installation will continue.

This error indicates that there was a problem with the download even if there was no sign of a problem during the download process itself. If you receive an error similar to this, please try downloading the software again. If you continue to receive this message, please email Hearne to see if a cd-rom version of the installer is available, and a support representative can arrange a return and process the purchase of the cd-rom product.

Due to the way that Windows and Mac read files that are placed on the clipboard and then embedded into documents, it is not possible to edit any structures placed inside of MS Office documents that are transferred between platforms.

The only workaround is to supply the cdx files along with the MS Office document if you want the other user to edit structures.

This holds true for document transfer from Mac to Windows as well as Windows to Mac.

Have a look at the ‘disabled items’ in Excel. You can find the same by the following way: 

The Name column specifies the name of the assembly, and the Location column specifies the full path of the application manifest. 

1) Launch Excel 2007 / 2010 and click the Microsoft Office Button.

2) Now click the Excel Options button, it will open the categories pane, click on Add-ins.

3) In the details pane, locate the add-in in the Disabled Application Add-ins list.

4) In the Manage box, click Disabled Items (select “Disabled Items” from the drop down list for “Manage” in the Excel Option dialog box), and then click Go.

5) Select the add-in and click Enable and click the Close button.

[To re-enable an add-in that has been hard disabled by Excel 2003, please try the following. 

1) Launch Excel 2003

2) Go to the Help menu and select “About Microsoft Excel”, it will open the “About Microsoft Excel” dialog box.

3) Click the “Disabled Items” button on the “About Microsoft Excel” dialog box.

4) Now check the “Disabled Items” dialog box. If you have ChemDraw for Excel addin is listed in that select and click the “Enable” button and retest the problem]

In some systems, a patch from Microsoft is needed to make the Excel add-ins work (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/908002). This patch can be found by navigating to the following location on the CD or in the downloaded installer: Installers\Cambridgesoft\SharedAddIn.

You should never be prompted for codes when launching an application. You should only be prompted for the codes during the installation. The codes are only meant to work at installation of the ChemDraw Ultra suite. The Chem3D and ChemFinder applications that come with ChemDraw Ultra are version 5.0, where the ChemDraw application is 6.0. The codes are 6.0 codes, so they will only work with ChemDraw at start up. Try uninstalling the software using the Add/Remove Programs control panel, make sure you are logged on as an Administrator to the machine, then reinstall the software and retest the applications while logged on as Administrator.

In ChemDraw 8, we added the ability to have mutiple drawing settings in a single document. This means that the Apply Document Settings command will only work for things that you draw AFTER applying the settings. If you want to change setting for existing drawings, select the object(s) you want to change, and then use the Object menu to Apply Object Settings.

First, check to make sure you are using a version of ChemDraw that comes with this feature. You can determine the version of ChemDraw that is launching by going to the Help menu and choosing the About option. Next, make sure ChemDraw is looking in the right location for the Structure to Name files. Go to the ChemDraw File menu and choose Preferences. Click on the Open/Save tab. Check the path of the ChemDraw Items folder listed in this dialog box to make sure it is pointing to the folder that belongs to the version of ChemDraw you are launching. Even if you believe it does, erase the path and reset it to the ChemDraw Items folder in the ChemDraw folder.

Activation is new in our 9.0 products. Similar to the way that Microsoft has implemented Activation in Windows and their Office products, we have implemented Activation in our software to help prevent the illegal use of our software. The benefit to the user is that we will be able to provide you with a higher level of customer support.

EGO was the protocol used that would allow you to edit structures within the Word 5.x document. Microsoft has dropped support of EGO in Word 6 and above. Word 6 and above support a graphic linking protocol called OLE. We would like to support OLE in a future version of ChemDraw for the Mac, but Microsoft does not appear to support Macintosh OLE development any longer.

Therefore, you will need to copy and paste between ChemDraw Mac and Word 6.x. We also suggest contacting Microsoft about dropping EGO which most other word processors still support.

ChemDraw is behaving as designed. The flip command is designed to be graphical, so it is flipping the structure. If you want to preserve the stereochemistry, use the "Rotate 180 degrees Horizontal" or "Rotate 180 degrees Vertical" option in the Object menu.

In versions of ChemDraw prior to 9.0, select the structure, hold own the Alt key, then click (and hold) on the Object menu. Now instead of "Flip Horizontal" or "Flip Vertical" it should say "Rotate 180 degrees Horizontal" and "Rotate 180 degrees Vertical".

This is a known issue within Microsoft’s Clipboard code. Microsoft has released a patch for this problem More information on how to obtain it can be found here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2413666. At the top of the page is a link to “View and request hotfix downloads” which you can select to receive a compressed download of the final patch.