SHELX is a set of programs for the determination of small (SM) and macromolecular (MM) crystal structures by single crystal X-ray and neutron diffraction. These stand-alone executables require NO libraries, extra files or environment variables. They are compatible with all modern versions of Linux, Windows and MacOSX, and are free for academic use. For-profit users are expected to pay a licence fee that covers development and support for all users.
The programs may be called from a GUI such as shelXle, Olex2, Oscail or WinGX (SM solution and refinement) or hkl2map, XDSGUI, CCP4I2 and CCP4 online (MM phasing), or from a command line in a terminal window (for Windows, this is called Command Prompt and may be found in Accessories). Several of the programs output an instruction summary if called without a filename. SHELX-2019 contains the following programs:
SHELXT - New small molecule (SM) structure solution program.
SHELXS - Classical direct methods for SM structure solution.
SHELXL - SM and MM refinement, more or less compatible with SHELX76 and SHELXL-97.
PDB2INS - Preparation of .ins and optionally .hkl files for macromolecular refinement with SHELXL. For structures already deposited with the PDB, only the four character PDB code is required. In about 95% of cases where the PDB deposit includes reflection data, a SHELXL refinement may then be started without needing to change these files.
CIFTAB and ShredCIF - editing and processing SM CIF files from SHELXL.
SHELXC, SHELXD and SHELXE - MM phasing. SHELXD is also useful for SM direct methods.
AnoDe - preparation and analysis of MM anomalous density maps.