Simply by rotating them, zooming them in and out, looking at them from all sides, changing their shapes, it becomes easier to understand their chemistry. However, when it comes to scientific publishing most of the beauty is lost. Colour graphics in printed journal are still very expensive. Molecules are constrained in 2D-structure diagrams. Stereo plots are poor solutions that can't help the molecules come back to life.
Electronic publishing promises the way out.
The idea of presenting results in the medium in which they were created need no longer to be fantasy since the expansion of the Internet. The use of electronic media in every step of the publication process should also lead to unprecedently short publication times. Thus the electronic journal becomes a permanent archive of science like the classical printed ones. The nature of the computer makes innovative new techniques necessary in electronic journals in order to make this new medium truly user-friendly. Analysing molecules on your computer is great, but reading a longer text on the screen is tiring.