Organic Syntheses on the Web

CambridgeSoft Delivers Fully Searchable Site With ChemOffice WebServer

Chicago, IL — August 27, 2001 — Organic Syntheses, a compendium of detailed experimental methods in a standard format for the synthesis of organic compounds, is now available on the World Wide Web at www.orgsyn.org. The Organic Syntheses (OS) editorial board provided financing for DataTrace publishing (www.datatrace.com) to digitize the printed volumes and for CambridgeSoft to create a web site which is fully searchable by structure, substructure, free text, and various OS indexes.

In some 77 annual volumes and 9 collective volumes published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., OS has compiled independently checked selected procedures and new reactions which, if carefully followed, permit the advanced research student or professional chemist skilled in the field to prepare compounds of research utility.

The first step for prospective users of the OS web site is to follow a link to the "System Requirements and Plugin Download" page. This page explains which versions of the Netscape and Microsoft Internet Explorer browsers are supported on Macintosh and Windows operating systems. It also provides information about how to obtain the ChemDraw plugin needed to submit and view chemical structures.

At the search page, the user can enter a structural query, a text-only query, or one which specifies both structure and text. Text fields include molecular formula, chemical name, CAS Registry Number, words in the title, the author’s name, and which collective and annual volumes to search. The first text box permits enormously flexible and powerful full text searching, including derivative forms of words and proximity searches (one word near another, ranked by proximity of the words). Each text field has a help button that activates on-line help explaining how to use the field and how best to formulate queries.

At the top of the search page, a Browse Reactions button leads to the OS Reaction Guide edited by Dennis Liotta and Mark Volmer. The reactions are listed by type, with each type linking to subheadings and eventually to specific reactions.

The reactions in the OS web site reproduce the full monographs in the printed OS volumes, including text, structures, and illustrations. Highlighted compounds are linked to other pages in the database where they appear. The power of structural searching and hyperlinked text becomes apparent as one navigates thousands of printed pages, spanning years of published work, with a few clicks of the mouse.

CambridgeSoft develops and markets life science enterprise solutions for pharmaceutical, biotechnology, chemical companies and academic research organizations. Software products include desktop to enterprise versions of ChemOffice, including ChemDraw, with knowledge management, research and discovery, applied bioinformatics, and chemical database solutions. Web sites include ChemFinder.Com and ChemNews.Com for indexed database content and news, and ChemStore.Com for e-commerce. For information about CambridgeSoft products, services, and resellers worldwide, please visit www.cambridgesoft.com, or call 800 315-7300 or 617 588-9100.

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