Making sexy molecules is a great way to make your science shine. Sometimes you just need that extra umph for your grant or presentation. There are a lot of drawing programs out there so which one should a chemist use? I suggest PowerPoint. All chemists have it installed in their computers, and it only takes seconds to make high-quality molecules. Below is a 3D image of benzene I made.

To make this image, first lay out the correct two dimensional geometry of benzene in powerpoint using circles (Carobon-diameter=1″; Hydrogen-diameter=0.75″) and rectangles (height=0.17″; width=1.71″) for bonds. It should look something like this:

Group all the components together and click shape effects in the drawing pane and select preset10:

I like this angle, and it is a starting point for a lot of my projects. Now it is time to make things round. Select all the carbons and use these settings to format the image:

Settings for Hydrogen:

Settings for the Bonds:

Your molecule should look something like what is shown below, assuming you also changed the fill and line colors along the way:

Finally, you need to move the bonds lower and here is the setting I used:

I hope this quick and dirty tutorial for making sexy molecules is useful for your work. For those in the sexy molecule business, what programs do you use?