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Jay Freedman Jay Freedman is offline
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Default how can I type chemical equations and structures in word / office

On Thu, 4 Dec 2008 03:07:01 -0800, H Newsholme
wrote:

Could anyone tell me how to type chemical formulae and equations showing
bonds and electrons (such as in Lewis structures) using Word? Do I have to
use a drawing package? I have both Office 2007 (w XP) and Office ultimate (w
Vista) so guidance for either/both would be much appreciated.
many thanks


On the Insert ribbon, in the Illustrations group, click the Shapes button. In
that gallery you'll find tools for drawing lines and other shapes. For
electrons, you can make filled circles as small as possible, or use colons and
umlauts for electron pairs.

In general, though, you'll find that Word is not a good tool for this. A
graphics program -- even the lowly Paint program that comes with Windows -- will
be more productive. Save the results as .jpg files, and you can then import them
into Word by clicking the Picture button on the Insert ribbon.

--
Regards,
Jay Freedman
Microsoft Word MVP FAQ: http://word.mvps.org
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