The reactions of ligand N'-[(pyridin-2-yl)methylene]pyrazine-2-carbohydrazide (ppcd) with different copper salts (1, acetate; 2, perchlorate; 3, sulfate) in MeOH could afford one acetate-bridge tetranuclear discrete [Cu-2(ppcd)(ac)(2)(H2O)(OH)](2)center dot H2O (1), one-dimensional (ID) chiral chain [Cu(ppcd)]ClO4 (2), and a 1D-decker complex of a trinuclear copper(II) subunit, Cu-3(ppcd)(2)(H2O)(4)(SO4)(2) (3). Single-crystal X-ray analysis revealed that conformation isomerism of the ppcd ligand was associated with the configuration of -N-N- (trans or cis) and could induce the versatile coordination mode in the presence of different anions. The ID chiral chain was interestingly obtained from the achiral rigid ligand in complex 2. Magnetic studies indicated that the magnitude of the antiferromagnetic coupling can be tuned because of the configuration isomerism [compound 1 is practically diamagnetic at room temperature (I approximate to -1000 cm(-1)), with a strong antiferromagnetic one (J = -255.4 cm(-1)) for 2 in the 1D uniform chain and an antiferromagnetic one (J = -123.6 cm(-1)) for 3 within the trinuclear copper subunit].