Two user-friendly computer programs are described for use in macromolecular X-ray crystallography, xdlMAPMAN provides an interface for electron-density map exchange between some of the most commonly used phase refinement, structure refinement and model- building programs. In addition, it contains several options to analyse and abstract such maps. xdlDATAMAN provides similar functionality for the analysis and manipulation of macromolecular reflection data sets. Both programs have a simple graphical user interface, and their source code has been put into the public domain.