Methyl 3-[4-(4-nitro-benz-yloxy)phen-yl]propano-ate

The title compound, C(17)H(17)NO(5), crystallizes with two mol-ecules (A and B) in the asymmetric unit. The conformational structures of the two mol-ecules show small but significant differences in the dihedral angles between the two aryl rings with values of 18.8 (1)° for mol-ecule A and 7.5 (1)° for mol-ecule B. In mol-ecule A, the propano-ate group is twisted out of the plane of the benzene group [C(ar)-C(ar)-C-C torsion angle = -44.9 (2)°], while for mol-ecule B, this group lies closer to the plane [C(ar)-C(ar)-C-C torsion angle = 8.6 (3)°]. C-H⋯O inter-actions characterize the crystal-packing inter-actions in this compound.