This page may guide users as to whether they should upgrade to a new version of ChemFormula.
The only definite way to determine the version date is to look at the code of the macro. The version date is on the first line of the macro.
If you have the distributed files, you can just open the appropriate macroX.doc file in Word, and look at the top line. Alternatively, you can examine the macro you have installed. To do this, see the instructions in Sect N of the ChemFormula Manual for how to edit the macro.
The date listed in your file directory may not correspond to the actual version date, since the directory date can be updated from time to time as files are copied.
A minor problem in the Testfile was corrected. For "Chemicals with dots", some of the dots were shown already raised. ChemFormula would properly handle them, but the intent was that they start as regular periods; they are now regular periods, and ChemFormula should raise them. There are no changes in the macros, but those who use the Testfile might want to get this new zip file to get the corrected Testfile.
The manual was updated, to reflect a change in how the ChemFormula files are packaged. This change has no effect for those who already have ChemFormula. Further, the contact information was updated, and that information was also updated in the manual, chemform.doc. The running code remains the same, and the file date shown within the macros was not changed. There is no need to change your version of the macro.
Only the contact information was updated, and that information was also updated in the manual, chemform.doc. The running code remains the same, and the file date shown within the macros was not changed. There is no need to change your version of the macro.
"Non-breaking hyphens" are now treated the same as regular hyphens. (In previous versions, if you used a non-breaking hyphen in writing a negative charge, ChemFormula would not notice it. Use of a non-breaking hyphen will prevent an unwanted line break at the - character.)
This version addresses two bugs that were reported.
1. The original version would not properly format the subscript 3 in (NH4+)3PO43-. More specifically, it would not allow a subscript after some charged groups in parentheses.
ChemFormula was designed to format molecular expressions that have no charge, and also to format ions that have a charge at the end of the expression. Including charges in the middle of an expression can confuse ChemFormula; it will format some such expressions but not others.
ChemFormula was designed to format molecular expressions that have no charge, and also to format ions. Including charges within a molecular formula can confuse ChemFormula.
This upgrade will format ions that are part of a chemical formula if the ion with its charge is in parentheses. If the ion is not in parentheses, the upgrade will format some cases and not others. See Sect H and the TestFile for examples.
2. The original version was designed to allow formatting of the charge in e-, as would be written in redox equations. To do this, it checked for occurrences of "e-" and asked about the hyphen in all such cases (such as in "pre-installed"). In most cases, no error resulted from this; it was merely an unnecessary question. One type of such problem has now been eliminated. This upgrade will ignore hyphens in words that start with a lower case letter, such as "pre-installed"; it will still recognize the isolated "e-" (preceded by a space, a + or - sign, or a number) as "electron". However, hyphens in words that begin with a capital letter will still confuse ChemFormula. Fixing this would require that ChemFormula stop and ask the user more questions; at this point, the problem does not seem sufficient to warrant this. This limitation of ChemFormula is listed above, in Sect H. We welcome feedback from users on this issue.
First official version. Earlier versions were distributed informally, for testing, but there are no formal records of what changes were made in specific versions prior to this date. If your version of ChemFormula is dated prior to this, you definitely should upgrade.