CrystMolPad displays crystal and molecular structures as atoms in various display styles, including ball and stick, space filling, and stick styles. Structures are represented as atoms and bonds in three-dimensions. Both isolated molecules and crystal structures are supported. CrystMolPad has a simple user interface designed for use at all levels of expertise, from secondary school students to research scientists. Educators should find CrystMolPad useful for introducing students to the three-dimensional structure of molecules and crystals. CrystMolPad will allow advanced students and scientists to study these fascinating structures in three-dimensional detail.

Users may rotate and resize displayed structures. Options are provided for studying hydrogen bonding, close contacts, bond distances, and bond angles. With crystal structures, users may add or delete symmetry-related atoms and molecules. Ribbon style is supported when displaying macromolecules. Snapshots of displayed structures are supported.

CrystMolPad is distributed with several read-only structure libraries--Simple Molecules, Common Minerals, Common Nucleosides, Common Sugars, Recent Crystal Structures, Simple Crystal Structures, Small Proteins and The Elements. The structures stored in these libraries are scientifically correct, with most sourced from the scientific literature. In addition to these read-only libraries, a user may create one or more personal read/write structure libraries. CrystMolPad provides for importing crystal structures from text files written using CIF (Crystallographic Information File), mmCIF, and CRYM formats. A text file may be copied to the iPad in several ways, including as an e-mail attachment.