SuperbChemistry for OpenOffice / LibreOffice

Status: maintained; 2007-2008, 2020 (supersedes any conflicting remarks left on this page; see the home page for definitions)

SuperbChemistry is an extension for OpenOffice and LibreOffice that applies superscript and subscript formatting to chemical formulas in bulk.  (The name comes from "super" and "sub".)  For example, if you run it on a portion of your document that contains "SO42-", that text will be converted to "SO₄²⁻".

I originally wrote the extension in 2007.  As of 2020-09-10, I have released version 3.0, which restores compatibility with modern versions of OpenOffice and LibreOffice and has other significant enhancements.  I tested it successfully in libreoffice-6.4.6.2-1.fc32 (Fedora 32) and an upstream build of OpenOffice 4.1.7.  Your feedback and contributions are welcome.  I don't have any plans for further development of the extension at this time, but I will consider making enhancements if there is significant demand.

SuperbChemistry has pages on the OpenOffice extensions site and the LibreOffice extensions site.

Installation and usage[# Top]

Installation: Download SuperbChemistry-VERSION.oxt below.  Then, in the application, go to "Tools" -> "Extension Manager" -> "Add" and browse for the file.  Finally, restart the application if you have not already been prompted to do so.  To upgrade, remove the old version and then install the new one.

Usage: In Writer, go to "Tools" -> "Add-Ons" (at the bottom) -> "SuperbChemistry: Format selection or document".  If you have selected some text, this will format the selection, otherwise it will format the whole document.

SuperbChemistry uses heuristics to guess what is intended to be a chemical formula and whether digits represent a quantity of an atom or group or a charge amount.  (See the readme in the source repository for details.)  If it makes a mistake, you must manually correct the formatting (or use the "undo" command to undo the entire formatting pass) and then do one of the following:

• Insert a "no-width no break" character (U+2060) between the element symbol (or closing delimiter) and the digits or charge to prevent SuperbChemistry from recognizing the sequence again.  In LibreOffice, go to "Insert" -> "Formatting Mark" -> "No-width No Break".  In OpenOffice, you have to get this character by operating-system-dependent means such as a character map application.
• Avoid running SuperbChemistry on that part of the document again.

I was inspired to write SuperbChemistry after the tedium of manually formatting chemical formulas in a two-page report for a high-school chemistry class, but I am not a chemistry expert and have never used the extension for real work, so I welcome reports of real cases on which SuperbChemistry guesses wrong and will see if I can fix them without breaking other cases (subject to available time, as with anything).

SuperbChemistry-test.odt is a test suite of sorts with chemical formulas that exercise most of the cases of the formatting algorithm.

Download[# Top]

Here is the source repository.

Version log[# Top]

• 3.1 (2022-10-15): Fix a bug where the "3" in a formula like Mg₃(PO₄)₂ was not formatted.
• 3.0 (2020-09-10): Updated for compatibility with modern versions of OpenOffice and LibreOffice.  A formatting pass can now be undone as a single unit, and it is possible to format a selection rather than the entire document.
• 2.2 (2008-10-27): Improve the heuristic for when a single digit preceding a sign is treated as an atom/group quantity or a charge amount.  H and halogens now take a quantity, so NH₄⁺ works.  Revise the documentation and explain how to manually override a mistake made by the formatter.
• 2.1 (2007-02-05): Instead of tagging and untagging false charge signs like in TI-89, don't tag them in the first place.  This reduces distractions in the undo history.
• 2 (2007-02-05): Improved search patterns to better determine what's a formula and what isn't.  Notably, don't recognize a charge sign if it is followed by a letter, digit, or one of ([{<> .
• 1 (2007-02-04): Formats charges and quantities reasonably well.