Reaxys (English): Quick Search

Step 1: Enter Searchterms

Quickly search with keywords, structures or both. 

Fill in your keywords in the searchbar. Hint: when you add words like Synthesis or Preparation Reaxys automatically understands that you are looking for a reaction. For useful know-hows about the structure editor Marvin JS, look here.

To search with chemical structures, click on Create Structure or Reaction Drawing.

You are automatically directed to the structure editor Marvin JS. Here you can draw your chemical structure, or you can click on Create structure template from name to generate a structure by filling in the systematic or trivial name of your compound. When the structure is drawn, click on Transfer to query.

Hint: you can also combine keywords with chemical structures. For example the structure of fructose with the term melting point to retrieve melting points of fructose.

Step 2: Which set of results do you choose?

After clicking on Search you will be directed to a page with several options. These options are different sets of data divided in multiple categories: "Substances", "Reactions" and "Documents". If you cannot immediately decide which data set is most useful for you, you can use the button Preview Results to get a mini-overview displaying the 3 best-matching results. To retrieve a complete overview of all results click on View Results.

Step 3: Filter your results

Depending on whether you've chosen for Reactions, Substances or Documents, you will see complete reactions, single chemical structures or just document titles respectively. On the left side you can find a Filter and Analysis menu. If you did not find the correct result immediately, you can refine your results here. 

All these different filter options can make your search more specific. By doing this you can simplify the way of finding the correct data in a specific journal article or finding a specific synthesis route. All these different filter-possibilities can also be chosen before searching by using the advanced search option or Query Builder. When a new filter is added, you can always choose between Limit To or Exclude. With this you can specifically look into results or remove them from your query. Hint: After applying different extra filters, it is possible to go back to a previous step by clicking on the breadcrumbs to the left of your screen. The number, depicted in the breadcrumbs below, shows how many results can be found with the applied filters in that step.

When the search task is sufficiently specified the results can be analyzed. For a clear overview about the different options in the Results screen navigate to the Results tab.