cdf file import into MS Office

[hkb]

We have used for years, Chrom Merge to import cdf files into MS Office documents; it has worked quite nicely for basic formatting of the chromatogram within the Office document (treated as an object), allowing for control of axes limits, axes labeling, trace annotation, etc, etc. However, with a recent version of ChemStation, the exported aia files (cdf files) no longer can be recognized by Chrom Merge. The unfortunate bit of this, is that it looks like Chrom Merge is no longer being developed. What other options (software or otherwise) do you know of, that are available to fill our need to directly import and manipulate chromatograms in MS Office documents (Word, PowerPoint)?
Thanks

[GasMan]

Hkb,

We had a similar request earlier. Below is my reply.

I work with the GC ChemStation and I have to prepare many manuals in MS Word where I need chromatograms. I use the following procedure, which will need MS PowerPoint.

Copy the chromatogram to the clipboard.

Open up PowerPoint with a new blank page. Paste in the chromatogram, using 'Paste Special'. Paste in as a Picture WMF.

Resize the picture so that it fits on your page and then right click on the picture and then choose 'Grouping' and then 'Ungroup'. You will get a popup asking you if you wish to convert to a drawing object. Answer yes.

You may notice that peaks that were off scale and were cut off now appear full size. You will deal with these later.

Again right click and choose 'Grouping' and 'Ungroup'.

You may now change anything you need to on the chromatogram, fonts, font size, color of chromatogram, remove or add detail, etc.

When you have finished everything, click on 'Edit' in the menu bar and then 'Select All'. Right click on the picture and choose 'Grouping' and 'Group'.

Click on 'File' and 'Save As' and save the picture in a temporary directory as a picture, .bmp or .wmf for example.

Delete the drawing that you have in PowerPoint and then load the picture back into PowerPoint using the 'Insert' menu.

Right click on the picture and choose 'Format Picture' and select the 'Picture' tab in the resulting window. You can now crop the picture and remove the peaks off scale and the excess 'white' margins.

When finished , select all, copy and then paste into Word. I recommend pasting in as a picture.

Hope this helps.

Gasman

[hkb]

Thanks, we'll give that a try.

[Alex Buske]

I just saw Chrommerge offered from the Molnar Institute:
http://www.molnar-institute.com/

Cheers,

Alex

[hkb]

Yes, thanks. We're aware that it's still available, but we're unable to find any indication that it's being further developed. Our current issue is that it's unable to use the cdf files from our latest version/build of ChemStation. Were it still being actively developed, this would likely get addressed.

[Tom Waeghe]

You can contact Bob Albrecht at http://www.chrommerge.com/. He should be able to answer all the questions on this.