In this article we report the results of combined theoretical and experimental structural studies on cinnamic acid derivatives (CADs), one of the main groups of secondary metabolites present in various medicinal plant species and food products of plant origin. The effects of structural differences in CADs on their spectroscopic properties were studied in detail by both: solid-state NMR and GIAO/GIPAW calculations. Theoretical computations were used in order to perform signal assignment in C-13 CP/MAS NMR spectra of the cinnamic, o-coumaric, m-coumaric, p-coumaric, caffeic, ferulic, sinapic and 3,4-dimethoxycinnamic acids, and to evaluate the accuracy of GIPAW and GIAO methodology. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.