Condensed Formulas
In early organic-chemistry publications, where use of graphics was strongly limited, a typographic system arose to describe organic structures in a line of text. Although this system tends to be problematic in application to cyclic compounds, it remains a convenient way to represent simple structures:
CH3CH2OH (ethanol)
Parentheses are used to indicate multiple identical groups, indicating attachment to the nearest non-hydrogen atom on the left when appearing within a formula, or to the atom on the right when appearing at the start of a formula:
(CH3)2CHOH or CH(CH3)2OH (2-propanol)
In all cases, all atoms are shown, including hydrogen atoms.
Read more about this topic: Structural Formula
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