Athanor by arbastro
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How to change an atom to another element

Point at an atom and press its letter (C, N, O, S, P, F, I, H, B or K). For anything else, point and press Enter to type a label such as Cl, Br or OMe, or select atoms and choose an element in View › Periodic table.

Steps

  1. Point at the atom you want to change. You do not need to click it or select it.

  2. Press its letter: C, N, O, S, P, F, I, H, B or K. The atom changes at once, and Athanor adds the hydrogens it needs.

    A cyclohexane carbon changed to nitrogen by pointing at it and pressing N, making piperidine.A cyclohexane carbon changed to nitrogen by pointing at it and pressing N, making piperidine.

  3. For any other element or group, point at the atom and press Enter, then type the label, for example Cl, Br, OMe or Boc, and press Enter again.

Pick from the periodic table

  1. Select the atoms to change.
  2. Choose View › Periodic table in the Main menu.
  3. Click an element. Every selected atom becomes that element. Point at an element first to see its name and atomic weight.

The Periodic table, ready to set the element of the six selected ring atoms.The Periodic table, ready to set the element of the six selected ring atoms.

Tip

Coming from ChemDraw? The ChemDraw classic shortcut set adds ChemDraw's label keys, such as e for Et and Shift+P for Ph. See Keyboard shortcuts for ChemDraw users.

Keyboard shortcutsKeyboard shortcutsPress ? in a document for the Controls cheat sheet, or Ctrl+K and search for a command to see its shortcut. Every shortcut can be changed in Settings › Shortcuts. On a Mac, Ctrl is Cmd.

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Last updated Nov 12, 2026