Ketcher is an open-source web-based chemical structure editor incorporating high performance, good portability, light weight, and ability to easily integrate into a custom web-application. Ketcher is designed for chemists, laboratory scientists and technicians who draw structures and reactions.
- Key Features
- Installation and usage
- FAQ
- Packages
- 3D Viewer
- Macromolecules mode
- API Reference
- Browser Compatibility
- Localization (i18n)
- Contribution
- Community Projects & Integrations
- License
- ⚡️ Fast 2D structure representation that satisfies common chemical drawing standards
- 💠 3D structure visualization
- 📝 Template library (including custom and user's templates)
- 🔩 Add atom and bond basic properties and query features, add aliases and Generic groups
- 🌀 Stereochemistry support during editing, loading, and saving chemical structures
- ➿ Storing history of actions, with the ability to rollback to previous state
- 💾 Ability to load and save structures and reactions in MDL Molfile or RXN file format, InChI String, ChemAxon Extended SMILES, ChemAxon Extended CML file formats
- 🔬 Zoom in/out, hotkeys, cut/copy/paste
- 🔮 OCR - ability to recognize structures at pictures (image files) and reproduce them
- 📋 Copy and paste between different chemical editors
- 🛠️ Settings support (Rendering, Displaying, Debugging)
- 📷 Use of SVG to achieve best quality in-browser chemical structure rendering
- 🌐 Localized UI (English, Simplified Chinese, Spanish) with a live language switcher in Settings
- Atom Tool, Bond Tool, and Template Tool to draw and edit structures
- Aromatize/De-aromatize Tool
- Calculate CIP Descriptors Tool
- Structure Check Tool
- MW and Structure Parameters Calculate Tool
- Select, modify, and erase connected and unconnected atoms and bonds using Selection Tool, or using Shift key
- Advanced Structure Clean up Tool (+ stereochemistry checking and structure layout)
- Simple Structure Clean up Tool (checks bonds length, angles and spatial arrangement of atoms)
- Easy to use R-Group and S-Group tools (Generic, Multiple group, SRU polymer, peratom, Data S-Group)
- Reaction Tool (reaction generating, manual and automatic atom-to-atom mapping)
- Flip/Rotate Tool
At this moment Ketcher can be embedded into your application in two ways:
- as ready-to-run application (to find desired version please look at Assets block of releases). The application can be injected as IFrame or a separate page.
- as a react component library
npm install ketcher-core ketcher-reactimport { Editor } from 'ketcher-react';
import { StandaloneStructServiceProvider } from 'ketcher-standalone';
import 'ketcher-react/dist/index.css';
const structServiceProvider = new StandaloneStructServiceProvider();
function App() {
return (
<Editor
staticResourcesUrl="/public"
structServiceProvider={structServiceProvider}
onInit={(ketcher) => {
window.ketcher = ketcher;
}}
/>
);
}When you embed the ready-to-run standalone application as an IFrame (rather than using
ketcher-react as a component library), Ketcher initializes asynchronously inside the
frame (loading the Indigo service/WASM, etc.). Because of this, window.ketcher inside the
frame is only assigned once initialization finishes — reading
iframeEl.contentWindow.ketcher right after the frame's load event (or immediately after
inserting the <iframe>) will typically still be undefined.
To reliably know when the embedded Ketcher is ready, listen for the init message that the
standalone application posts to its parent window once onInit has fired, instead of polling
contentWindow.ketcher:
const iframeEl = document.getElementById('ifKetcher');
window.addEventListener('message', (event) => {
if (event.source !== iframeEl.contentWindow) return;
if (event.data?.eventType === 'init') {
const ketcher = iframeEl.contentWindow.ketcher;
// ketcher is now guaranteed to be initialized
}
});Look at the following link for details.
You can find the instruction for service installation here.
| Project | Status | Description |
|---|---|---|
| ketcher-core |  |
Core functionality: domain, shared services, functions and interface declarations |
| ketcher-standalone |  |
Contains only the functionality necessary to start Ketcher in standalone mode |
| ketcher-react |  |
Package contains only the functionality necessary to define components. |
| ketcher-macromolecules |  |
Package contains the macromolecules editor functionality and UI components |
Ketcher uses Miew-React for viewing and editing data in 3D.
You can find the latest version of Miew-React here. The last checked version - 0.12.0.
Starting with version 3.0, Ketcher supports a new control in the top toolbar that allows switching to macromolecules editing mode. If you prefer having only small molecules editing mode available, you can remove the mode switcher from the toolbar by passing disableMacromoleculesEditor property to the Editor component.
import { Editor } from 'ketcher-react';
const App = () => {
return (
<Editor
{/* ...rest of the properties */}
disableMacromoleculesEditor
/>
);
};Please refer to the example/src/App.tsx file for a complete example of how to integrate Ketcher editor into your application.
The full API reference — export/import methods, editor operations, view control, settings, events, the React component API, and service providers — is in documentation/api.md.
Ketcher supports modern browsers:
- Chrome/Edge (latest 2 versions)
- Firefox (latest 2 versions)
- Safari (latest 2 versions)
Requirements:
- ES6+ JavaScript support
- WebAssembly support (for standalone mode)
- SVG rendering
Details on multi-language support and how to opt in to the KETCHER_MULTI_LANGUAGE_BUILD are in documentation/localization.md.
See Contributing Guide.
- https://github.com/Marco-Matlock/Excel-Addin - Excel plugin to run Ketcher on a task pane as an Office Addin
- https://github.com/katalystnord/ketcher-desktop - Desktop application for Ketcher made on electron
- https://github.com/yulei-chen/obsidian-ketcher - An Obsidian plugin to view or draw chemical structures and reactions using Ketcher
Please read LICENSE and NOTICE for details.
Copyright (c) 2021 EPAM Systems, Inc.