CAS SciFinder-n Database: Using CAS SciFinder-n: Help, Tutorials, and Guides

In CAS SciFinderⁿ, you may search for:

• Substances - in other words chemicals, by name, molecular formula, or even by chemical properties like melting points, spectra, etc., as well as by drawing the structure. (more Help on Substance Searcching)
• Reactions - as published in organic or organometallic chemistry journals. (more Help on Reaction Searching)
• References - in other words, published articles, patents, papers, etc. by any part of the reference or by keywords in the titles, abstracts, or Concepts (subject tags) for the item. (more Help on Reference Searching)
• Suppliers - to find out who sells a certain chemical
• ...or combine these using ALL.  In this way, you could search for a keyword AND a chemical structure to find all publications that have a particular compound along with a particular topic.

You may also perform searches on

• Biosequences - proteins or nucleotide strings by uploading standard BLAST, CDR, or Motif sequence
• Retrosynthesis analysis by entering your desired product and analyzing synthetic routes that could get you to that product.

The most common problems logging in to CAS SciFinderⁿ are because:

You are not using the off-campus proxy.  If you get a message that you are "Not authorized from this IP address", you need to use the link: https://go.openathens.net/redirector/utoledo.edu?url=https%3A%2F%2Fscifinder-n.cas.org%2F

Wrong Username or Password.  If you cannot remember your username or password, you can retrieve it using your e-mail address and the answer to your security question at the 'Forgot Username or Password?' link on the Login screen.

The Chemical Abstract Service (CAS), producer of CAS SciFinderⁿ, provides many training and troubleshooting guides on their website. 

Perhaps the most useful single guide is the Quick Reference Guide.  Their complete CAS SciFinder-n Help site is also useful for detailed explanations with a nice table of contents. 

Training Topics

Quick overviews of basic functionality including

• Reference Searching
• Substance Searching
• Reaction Searching
• Patent Searching
• Biosequence Searching
• Managing Search Results including saving searches and creating alerts
• ...and more!

Help and Training may be given in short videos, or in text explanations with illustrated screen shots, while some is presented as a previously recorded webinar.

Chemical Abstracts Service trainers provide regular web-seminar training opportunities.  Upcoming seminars' dates and registration information are available (be sure it's CAS SciFinderⁿ and not another CAS product!).