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From: peters@cubsvax.UUCP (Peter S. Shenkin)
Newsgroups: net.text
Subject: Chemistry Phototypesetting?
Message-ID: <317@cubsvax.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 27-Feb-85 10:38:05 EST
Article-I.D.: cubsvax.317
Posted: Wed Feb 27 10:38:05 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 1-Mar-85 20:50:16 EST
Reply-To: peters@cubsvax.UUCP (Peter S. Shenkin)
Organization: Columbia Univ Biology, New York City
Lines: 18
Keywords: chemistry

Does anyone know of any processor similar to eqn or tbl that will draw
chemical formulas (such as the ring structure for benzene) based on some
input language?

I'm a chemist, and often need to insert such formulas into troff'ed documents.
I've thought about the problem, actually, and can't even imagine what the
input language would look like -- unless it were standard IUPAC chemical
nomenclature.  Unfortunately, this would make life difficult even for
adepts, since these complicated names are often hard to derive for non-
trivial substances.  The eqn philosophy -- an input language based on the
graphical appearance, rather than the mathematical content of the text --
would be desirable.  The variety of ways of representing compounds, and
the two-dimensional nature of the illustrations, make this hard to envision.
But maybe someone smarter than me has thought hard about it...

If so, please reply to the net or by mail.

Peter S. Shenkin,		philabs!cubsvax!peters