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JCE WebWare
William F. Coleman
Abstracts of Recent Articles
Wellesley College Wellesley, MA 02481
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Randall J. Wildman University of Wisconsin–Madison Madison, WI 53715
The JCE WebWare collection continues to grow. This month we add two quite-different applications, and another WebWare Molecules collection, linked to the article concerning chemistry and sports on p 813. One of the applications, from Christopher King, is a chemistry formatter that provides several add-ins for Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel, greatly simplifying entry of chemical formulas and equations into these programs. The other, from Ed Vitz, is a spreadsheet designed to assist students in their study of the chemical applications of group theory. Brief summaries appear below. Chemistry Formatter Add-ins for Microsoft Word and Excel Christopher King, Department of Chemistry, Troy State University, Troy, AL 36082
A chemistry formatter is software that does some of the formatting a chemist would otherwise have to do by hand. Chemistry formatters for Microsoft Excel and Word are provided that perform the five functions described below. 1. The appropriate numbers in a chemical formula are subscripted, as in H2O. 2. The asterisk is replaced by ⭈ (to indicate waters of hydration or a radical). 3. Charges are superscripted. 4. —> is converted to →. 5. Numbers in the form of 3.2E8 are converted to 3.2 ⫻ 108.
Users select the material to be formatted, click the chemistry formatter button, and the reformatted material appears. The formatters are written in Visual Basic and are packaged as add-ins. The code is not protected, making these add-ins possible templates for new add-ins. A macro and 19 “AutoCorrect” entries are also provided, which can easily be added or removed. After these entries are installed, Word will automatically convert, for example, pKa to pKa, Dgo to ∆G°, Co-60 to 60Co, and
