Periodic Table (PSE) — Tips & Tricks

Back to the overview: Periodic Table (PSE) · Open the tool live: www.jpkc.com/tools/pse/

The manual explains every feature, the examples show the lookup paths. This page is about what both assume but rarely spell out: how to find things faster, how to read the data correctly, and where the tool's limits are.

Search and filter faster

The search knows four ways to the same element. It checks the English name, the German name, the symbol, and the atomic number — simultaneously and regardless of the selected language. So you don't have to switch to German first to find "Sauerstoff"; even in the English view the German name hits. The fastest input is usually the symbol (Fe, Au, W) or the atomic number.
Symbol plus Enter is the shortest path. A short symbol like W also hits every element with a "w" in its name (lawrencium, plus German names such as Wasserstoff and Schwefel), but the bright frame marks tungsten as the exact match — and Enter opens exactly that one. Escape clears the field again.
Search and category filter act in combination. The two together combine with logical AND. That's useful for narrowing down a class — "all transition metals with a 'c' in the name" — but also a pitfall: if an expected element doesn't show up, often an old category filter is still active. When in doubt, press the × reset.
Reset clears both at once. The × button next to the search field wipes the search text and the category filter together. It's only active while something is filtered — if it's greyed out, the table is already in its full state.
The legend isn't just decoration. In the Category view, each color entry is a filter. One click on "Halogens" shows you immediately which elements belong to it — faster than hunting them down one by one in the grid. No legend in sight? Then Colour by is set to another view.

Read the data correctly

You pick the temperature unit. The default is Kelvin. Set Temperature unit to °C or °F and the detail view shows melting and boiling point in that unit, with the Kelvin value in parentheses — no converting needed. The choice also applies to the temperature slider and the color scale legend, and it's remembered in your browser.
Gases are in g/L, not g/cm³. The detail view gives the density of gases in grams per liter (hydrogen 0.0899 g/L), that of solids and liquids in g/cm³. When comparing two values, mind the unit — the factor is 1000.
Square brackets on the atomic mass are intentional. A mass like [267] (instead of 267) means the element has no stable natural isotope; the value given is the mass number of the most stable known isotope. This applies to most radioactive elements: technetium, promethium, polonium through radium, actinium, and neptunium through oganesson. Thorium, protactinium, and uranium have a standard atomic weight despite being radioactive and appear without brackets — so the molar mass calculator shows no approximation notice for them either.
An em dash means "not defined". When you see "—" for melting point, boiling point, density, or electronegativity, the value is unknown or not meaningfully stated for that element — typical for the superheavy elements at the end of the table and for the electronegativity of most noble gases (except krypton and xenon). It's not a flaw in the table.
The state of matter is for room temperature — except in the temperature view. The colored dot on the tile and the "State (25 °C)" field in the detail view refer to around 25 °C. For any other temperature, set Colour by to State at a temperature and use the slider. "Unknown" applies to the superheavy elements and to the actinoids fermium through lawrencium, whose state hasn't been experimentally confirmed. For fermium through lawrencium the temperature view works from the known melting point and shows them as solid at room temperature and liquid above it.
The temperature view is a calculation, not a measurement. The tool derives the state from the stored melting and boiling points at standard pressure. At other pressures the display doesn't hold; the tool doesn't model phase diagrams.
Color scales show rank, not precision. The color tells you where an element sits between the lowest and the highest value. For the exact figure, open the tile. The density scale is logarithmic — equal color steps there mean equal factors, not equal differences. Hatched tiles have no value; they're not "zero".
The block derives from the group. f for lanthanides and actinides, d for groups 3 to 12, s for groups 1 and 2 plus hydrogen and helium, otherwise p. Helium sits above the noble gases, but it belongs to the s-block.

Use language cleverly

The PSE starts in your browser's language. On the very first visit the table follows your browser (German for a German browser, English otherwise) and immediately stores that language locally in the browser. If you need the other language, click the language button once — that changes the stored choice. If you later change your browser's language, the PSE sticks with the stored one.
The button label shows the target, not the current state. "DE" on the button means: click here to switch to German. When the table is already in German, the button reads "EN". Mix that up and you toggle one time too many.
Both language names are searchable at the same time. Handy for mixed classes or bilingual work: whether someone types "Tungsten" or "Wolfram", both find the same element — without switching language first.

Formulas in the molar mass calculator

Case matters. CO is carbon monoxide (C + O), Co is cobalt. A symbol has to start with a capital letter; the calculator answers co with an error message.
Separate charges with ^. SO4^2- or SO4 2- calculates the sulfate ion correctly (96.056 g/mol). If the charge follows the subscript directly (SO42-), the calculator reads 42 oxygen atoms. For single charges like NH4+ or Na+ it doesn't matter — the sign is dropped, the digits stay a subscript.
Avoid superscript signs. The calculator understands subscript and superscript digits from copied text (H₂O), but not superscript ⁺ and ⁻. Replace them with +/- and put a ^ in front.
The mass share is your sanity check. A typo in a subscript stands out immediately in the table when an element has an unexpected share. The Hill formula above it also shows you the summed atom counts — for C2H5OH, for instance, C2H6O.
Hydrate dot without special characters. Instead of ·, * and . work too — CuSO4.5H2O calculates the same as CuSO4·5H2O.
Copy gives you a decimal point. The Copy button always puts the molar mass on the clipboard with a decimal point (249.677), even in the German view — worth knowing if you paste into a spreadsheet set to German number formats.
Radioactive elements are approximations. If the formula contains an element with a bracketed mass (such as radium), the tool uses the mass number of the most stable isotope and says so.

The address remembers the element. Open an element and it appears as #Symbol in the URL. Copy link in the detail view shares exactly that view; for worksheets, #26 or #iron work too.
Language and unit don't travel with the link. The link only opens the element. Language, temperature unit, view, and filters are decided by the browser of whoever opens it.

Pitfalls

A reference work with a molar mass calculator, not a chemistry suite. The PSE delivers properties per element and the molar mass of chemical formulas, but it does not balance reaction equations or do any stoichiometry beyond that.
No full isotope list. There's one atomic mass per element, not a breakdown of all isotopes. The square brackets only point to the most stable isotope.
The category filter rests in other views. If you filtered in the Category view and switch to a color scale, the full grid comes back. Return to the Category view and the filter is active again.
Lanthanides and actinides are relocated. If you look for them at position 3 of periods 6 and 7, you'll only find placeholder tiles ("57–71" and "89–103"). The elements themselves sit as two f-block rows below the main table — the usual textbook layout.
Scroll on narrow screens. The tiles shrink with the width, but not below 54 pixels — so the 18-column grid is wider than a phone display and scrolls horizontally. If elements seem "missing" on the right, just swipe sideways.

What the tool is not — and where to go next

The PSE is deliberately lean: a fast, privacy-friendly reference with no account that runs entirely in the browser. It replaces no chemistry learning system and no chemistry suite — it answers "What data does element X have?" reliably and instantly, and works out the molar mass of a formula for you.

If you want to work further with the element data, other JPKCom tools fit in:

Colors — if you want to reuse the PSE's ten category colors in your own teaching or material graphics: color picker, gradients, and palettes.
Info Tools — another compact reference from the JPKCom toolbox when you need browser or system information.

More context: the overview for the big picture, the manual for all data and features, and the examples for the step-by-step paths. You can try it all directly in the tool.