"Round trip" editing ChemDraw figures embedded within Office 2016 documents now behaves as expected. Had not for many, many years until ~Fall 2017, apparently. |
Current status:
Deprecated?
Title used to stated:
Excerpt used to state:
Summary, for end-users
If you use a Mac and ChemDraw, now is the time to learn the procedure to copy-and-paste ChemDraw elements for roundtrip editing with MS Office 2016 documents. The changed occurred after Microsoft Office 2011 (Mac) and staying with that version of Office is not a viable long-term solution.
Here is the procedure to copy a ChemDraw object into MS Office 2016's Word or PowerPoint applications:
With the end of the support life cycle for Office 2011 on 10/10/2017, it may no longer be possible to install Office 2011 on newer versions of macOS.
Chemistry IT sharing information to the department:
Prior information from Chemistry IT on this topic:
Table of Contents
Microsoft changed how pasting works in Office 2016 for the Mac, as PerkinElmer support posts noted:
Similar programs have the exact same issue, also requiring you to "Paste as PDF" on the Mac:
Up to now (as of August 2017), most people in our department have managed this change by continuing to use Office 2011 for Word and PowerPoint. This strategy is not sustainable for the reasons cited below.
1) Microsoft currently offers just Office 2016, and no other version is available for download via Office 365 to personal computers.
2) End of mainstream support (no more security patching) for Microsoft Office 2011 on October 2017.
3) Also, support may end simply by virtue of new Mac OS's. For example, macOS 10.13 "High Sierra" has a new file system (APFS). Although APFS nominally may run any software newer than ~2009, might not for some specifically such as MS Office 2011. Example:
As of August 2017:
Researchers and others to perhaps reach out to in person:
Person | Notes |
---|---|
Pete Wolczanski <ptw2> | |
Geoff Coates <gc39> | |
Dave Collum <dbc6> | |
Others? |
Communication plan:
Method | Dates, aprox | Notes |
---|---|---|
Documented (wiki) | Fall 2016 | Done, always being added to. |
Newsletter (and News item) | Aug 2017 | Initially noted to ourselves to do Jan 17, 2017. |
Talk about and meet with groups and individuals | Do? | See above table. |
Computing Cmt's role? |
Came out ~11/1/16:
The issues in the following section all apply to ChemDraw 16 as well as Chemdraw 15 and Chemdraw 15.1 on Apple MacOS computers.
http://forums.cambridgesoft.com/messageview.aspx?catid=12&threadid=3415
So eventually I track down Clipboard Viewer to look at raw clipboard data. This was invaluable!
From ChemDraw to the following type of Word file: | Tested file on left on a Mac: Open in Word (Office 2011) => ChemDraw | Tested file on left on a Mac: Open in Word (Office 2016) => ChemDraw
| Tested file on left on Windows: Word (Office 2016) => ChemDraw |
---|---|---|---|
Created/ edit on a Mac: Office 2011 (Word):
| OK | OK | FAIL |
Created/ edit on a Mac: Office 2011 (Word):
| OK | OK | FAIL |
Created/ edit on a Mac: Office 2016 (Word):
| FAIL | FAIL | FAIL |
Created/ edit on a Mac: Office 2016 (Word):
| OK | OK | FAIL |
Created/ edit on a Windows: Any Office version (Word):
| OK? | OK? | OK? |
7 Known Issues, Limitations and Workarounds (as of download date 10/31/2016)
The following list describes the known issues, limitations, and workarounds for ChemOffice 15.1:
• When you copy any object from ChemDraw (Mac) and paste (default) in MS Word 2016, it pastes an MOL text version of that object instead of the original object view.
o Workaround: Use the 'Paste Special >> PDF option in MS Word to get the original object view pasted. This PDF object can be copied back to ChemDraw by maintaining all ChemDraw object properties.