Introduction

ChemSpider is a chemistry search engine. It has been built with the intention of aggregating and indexing chemical structures and their associated information into a single searchable repository and making it available to everybody, at no charge. ChemSpider is a value-added offering since many properties have been added to each of the chemical structures within the database – structure identifiers such as SMILES, InChI, IUPAC and Index Names as well as many physicochemical properties. ChemSpider is intended to offer the fastest chemical structure searches available online and delivered with the flexibility and usability necessary to encourage repeat usage. This technical note describes the ability to perform text-based searches using browser add-ins for Internet Explorer and Firefox.

Text-Based Searching

The ChemSpider search page offers two modes of searching, the default search shown below as well as an advanced search (allow searching by structure/substructure and molecular properties).

The simple search screen allows searching based on Systematic Name, Synonym, Trade Name, SMILES string or InChI string. The search works by first searching on the synonym. If nothing is found then it converts the query to an InChI string if possible (using ACD/Labs Name to Structure conversion software, this also converts SMILES to InChI). If nothing is found using the InChI as the basis of the search then a search is performed using the originally input text to search as a substring of a synonym.

This text-based search has been enabled from within a browser window by providing add-ins to incorporate into the browser window following the OpenSearch standard.

Adding the ChemSpider Add-in into Internet Explorer (Tested on Version 7.0)

1) In order to add ChemSpider as one of the search engines into Internet Explorer follow these simple steps.

2) Navigate to www.chemspider.com

3) In the top right hand side of Internet Explorer click on the down arrow and choose Add Search Provider” and click on ChemSpider.

4) When the Add Provider dialog box is shown then Add ChemSpider as a provider and as the default search provider if appropriate.

5) ChemSpider is now added as a search provider and can be chosen from the pulldown at the top right hand side and searched performed as outlined earlier.

6) Simply by typing in the query string into the ChemSpider search box the ChemSpider search is executed and the results are displayed. For example, typing xanax into the search box provides the result displayed.

Adding the ChemSpider Add-in into Firefox

1) In order to add ChemSpider as one of the search engines into Firefox  follow these simple steps.

2) Navigate to www.chemspider.com

3) In the top right hand side of Firefox click on the down arrow and choose Add “ChemSpider” .

4) Once Add ChemSpider is selected the ChemSpider search engine is available for use.

5) Simply by typing in the query string into the ChemSpider search box the ChemSpider search is executed and the results are displayed.

Conclusion

The ChemSpider text-based searches have been made available as add-ins for both Internet Explorer and Firefox. This technical note has provided and overview of how to install these add-ins into your preferred browser in order to facilitate ease-of-use.