1. Introduction

The OpenEye Babel program interconverts molecule files among several supported formats. Babel is built upon and in most ways a thin wrapper around OEChem, the OpenEye toolkit for chemistry, and the chemoinformatics foundation for most OpenEye applications. Babel is intended to provide convenient and flexible access to the file interconversion capabilities integral to the OpenEye suite of software.

The program name "Babel" has a rich and proud history involving Arizona (a U.S. state formerly in the New Mexico territories), the open source software movement, intrigue, daring, and several colorful characters. For now may it suffice to say that this incarnation, the OpenEye Babel application, should not be confused with OpenBabel, the original open source Babel, or OELib's Babel.