Reaxys (EN): Searching reaxys

The quick-search menu is a quick way to get a glance of the information that is available on a subject. Various subjects can be entered here, such as substances, reactions or simply keywords. To broaden your search is it also possible to use wildcards: the asterisk* and question mark?

The asterisk is used as a wildcard for 0, 1 or multiple characters. The questionmark works as a wildcard for just one character. Both can be used in any position in a search-term, so for example at the beginning, middle and end of a search-term.

When entering a complex query, Reaxys attempts to translate this on its own. To check the exact query that Reaxys used you can click 'find', and select 'Edit in Query builder', next to the suggested search strings. For more complex searches it is recommended to use the Query builder menu.

The results section can consist of the following items:

• Documents: an overview of the literature available on a subject. Depending on the terms that are used Reaxys can suggest different combinations of keywords to search. Select the preferred combination from the menu.
• Substances: an overview of variations on a substance and related properties. For each substance you can select new fields such as the preparation, reactions and documents
• Reactions: an overview of a number of chemical reactions that can be used to produce a substance
• Commercial substances: an overview of possible suppliers of a chemical substance

After searching with either the quick search menu or the query builder, you get a number of options to filter your results. these differ per category in which you search. 

The Query builder in Reaxys is an advanced menu in which you can build a query. Unlike the quick search menu it does not automatically adds possible related terms to search for. It does however allow the user to build a very specific query by including elements such as molecular structures and formula's, substance properties, title/abstract/keyword-terms. The different terms can be connected using boolean operators (AND/OR/NOT). 

To add a new term to the query select one of the search fields in the sidebar or the bar above (with current patent assignee, structure etc). These will be added below, where you can enter your query.

Keep in mind that adding too many search elements with AND can result in too few results.     

The retrosynthesis menu allows you to draw a (complex) molecular structure, for which Reaxys can suggest synthesis pathways. The molecular structures can be drawn up in the programs MarvinJS and ChemDrawJS. You can also insert a molecule from name and further edit the structure in the editor. 

If information is available on the substance, Reaxys will suggest pathways to synthesize the substance. In the pathways you can also add additional synthesis steps for the substrates.