- File allows you to read in individual structures for display (see Section 3.3), or lists of structures obtained from a search of the Cambridge Structural Database or other databases in CSD format (see Section 3.2). It also provides facilities for saving Mercury displays (see Section 15).
- Selection allows you to select sets of atoms in order for you to perform an action on them, such as colouring (see Section 2.6).
- Display provides access to the following functionality:
- Setting Styles, Colours, Labels and Show/Hide status (i.e. whether objects are displayed or hidden) (see Section 6).
- Listing, in spreadsheet form, the atoms, bonds and contacts on view, and calculated objects and geometries such as planes, centroids, distances, angles and torsions. Also, depending on file format, displaying information such as the chemical diagram and literature reference (see Section 13).
- View provides facilities for moving the display and viewing along crystallographic axes (see Section 5)
- Calculate provides access to the following functionality:
- Controlling displays of crystal Packing and use of the Slicing facility to display a section through the crystal structure (see Section 9).
- Calculating, displaying and saving the powder diffraction profile of the structure on view.
- Performing least-squares overlay of pairs of structures.
- Modify provides access to the following functionality:
- The ability to manually edit structures including the addition of hydrogen atoms, the addition of bonds, the editing of bond types and the removal of atoms, bonds and molecules (see Section 12.1).
- The ability to automatically assign bond-types, standardise bond-types to Cambridge Structural Database conventions and to add missing hydrogen atoms (see Section 12.2).
- Databases is used to load the entire Cambridge Structural Database or an in-house database in CSD format (see Section 3.1).
- Help provides access to on-line help, tutorials and registration information.
