CMD + V for chemistry: Image to chemical structure conversion directly done in the clipboard

Abstract

AbstractWe present Clipboard‐to‐SMILES Converter (C2SC), a macOS application that directly converts molecular structures from the clipboard. The app focuses on seamlessly converting screenshots of molecules into a desired molecular representation. It supports a wide range of molecular representations, such as SMILES, SELFIES, InChI's, IUPAC names, RDKit Mol's, and CAS numbers, allowing effortless conversion between these formats within the clipboard. C2SC automatically saves converted molecules to a local history file and displays the last 10 entries for quick access. Additionally, it incorporates several SMILES operations, including canonicalization, augmentation, as well price‐searching molecules on chemical vendors for the cost‐effective purchasing option. Beyond the one‐click conversion from clipboard to molecular structures, the app offers continuous monitoring of the clipboard which automatically converts any supported representations or images detected into SMILES. The convenient interface, directly in the status bar, as well as availability as macOS application, makes C2SC useful for a broad community not requiring any programming expertise. Most conversions are performed locally, notably the image‐to‐SMILES conversion, with internet access only necessary for specific tasks like price lookups. In summary, C2SC provides a user‐friendly and efficient solution for converting molecular structures directly from the clipboard, offering seamless conversions between comprehensive chemical representations and can be directly downloaded from https://github.com/O-Schilter/Clipboard-to-SMILES-Converter.