FAQs
Are there any tools available to help produce a CIF?
Solution
Guidelines for the preparation and editing of a CIF, the data items required therein, standard data codes and keywords, CIF templates, example CIFs, and data validation criteria and procedures are available via the IUCr CIF pages and CIF generating software.
The IUCr checkCIF/PLATON service can be run as part of the online deposition service available at www.ccdc.cam.ac.uk/deposit and the reports can be downloaded upon submission. This will allow you to check the integrity of your data and will highlight possible errors and omissions present in your CIF.
CIF syntax checks and editing are integrated into the CSD deposition process using our online service. These checks are based on the program enCIFer which is freely available from the CCDC and provides an intuitive, user-friendly interface to facilitate the editing and validation of CIFs. EnCIFer also enables information to be added safely to a CIF without corrupting the strict syntax. For information on correcting CIFs, please see this link.
The CCDC program Mercury is a crystallographic visualiser available free of charge to the scientific community.
The CCDC also produces the program Mogul, as part of the CSD-Core, which uses the experimentally derived data present in the CSD to aid your crystal structure solution process or validate structures already output from structure solution packages.