Easy editing of Protein Data Bank formatted files with EMACS

A protein crystallographer typically spends a large proportion of time manipulating Protein Data Bank (PDB) formatted coordinate files. Of the many situations where such coordinate data must be altered for a particular purpose, a combination of a simple text editor and a number of programs is required. pdb-mode for EMACS provides a set of commonly used commands that allow many of these repetitive or trivial computational tasks to be performed within the environment of the EMACS editor, without recourse to writing temporary files and running external programs.