PLoS Biology Guidelines for Table and Figure Preparation
- Select Color Mode
- Determine Figure Type
- Choose Figure Dimensions
- Choose Figure Text
- Choose File Format/Size
- Upload Video and Motion Graphics
- Upload Tables
As part of the process of making scientific and medical literature freely available on the Web, PLoS uses a streamlined production process that takes authors' figures straight to layout. We appreciate every effort authors put toward ensuring that their figures meet our specifications.
Authors should submit their figures as close to "camera-ready" as possible. In other words, the figures should look exactly how they need to look in a print-ready PDF—properly sized, with fonts and labels at an appropriate size, and produced in a high-resolution format. The following steps will help you meet these criteria; please read them carefully.
Ultimately the art department will manipulate each figure, taking into consideration multiple factors (font size, overall layout, resolution, etc). They will size figures at either 1-, 1.5-, or 2-column width.
PLEASE REMEMBER
Simply because a figure looks good on screen, this does not mean it will look good in the printed PDF. To ensure that your figure appears as you intended you should size the figure to its final dimensions and print it on your personal printer; the PLoS product should look relatively similar to the home printer copy.
Step 1: Select Color Mode
Our printing process requires that your images be in either RGB or grayscale. Please adjust your color settings before beginning your work.
Step 2: Determine Figure Type (Vector vs. Raster)
Vector Graphics (Computer-Generated Line Art Images)
Common examples of vector graphics are text, tables, charts, graphs, and gene sequences. Vector graphics are mathematically defined geometric shapes that can be independently manipulated. The distinguishing feature of a vector graphic is that it has sharp, clean lines and crisp edges at any size and shape. To prepare and manipulate vector graphics, you can use Adobe Illustrator, PowerPoint, or a comparable vector-drawing program.
Vector graphic file types are the following: .PDF, .EPS, .AI, .PPT, and .DOC files.
*If your vector graphic file contains ANY raster images, it is considered a combination figure (please see below for details).
 |
 |
 |
Vector Graphic Zoomed in at 100% |
Vector Graphic Zoomed in at 600% |
Vector Graphic Zoomed in at 1200% |
Raster Images (Non-Line Art Images)
Common examples of raster images are photographs, gels, stains, microarrays, brain scans, and molecular structures. Raster images are created from a collection of countless tiny squares, called pixels. To prepare and manipulate raster images, use PhotoShop or a comparable photo-editing program. Be sure your originals are high resolution. We require these images to be a minimum resolution of 300 dpi. The figure should not look fuzzy, jagged, pixilated, or grainy at intended print size.
Raster image-based file types are the following: .TIFF, .JPG, .BMP, and .GIF files.
*If your raster image file contains ANY text or computer-generated line art, it is considered a combination figure (please see below for details).
 |
 |
 |
Raster Graphic Zoomed in at 100% |
Raster Graphic Zoomed in at 600% |
Raster Graphic Zoomed in at 1200% |
Combination Figures (Vector Combined with Raster Images)
Combination figures use both vector and raster images. Common examples of combination figures can be multipanel figures, graphs, diagrams, and anything with text laid over an image (including panel labels: A, B, C, etc.). Any text in a combination image should be created at 600dpi; do not create text at a lower resolution and then subsequently increase the resolution of the entire image to 600dpi as this will not return the desired results. Instead, when creating a combination file, it is usually best to start with the raster image (for example, a photomicrograph preferably already at 300 dpi or higher) and use Photoshop or a similar program to increase the resolution to 600 dpi. Add text to the 600dpi version and save the file.
Example of Combination Figure
If saving as a raster file (.TIFF, .JPG, .BMP, .GIF), the resolution must be at least 600 dpi. Conversely, if saving as a vector file (.PDF, .EPS, .AI, .PPT, .DOC), all raster images placed within need to be at least 300 dpi.
PLEASE REMEMBER
The quality of your figures will only be as good as the lowest-resolution element placed in them. In other words, if you use a 72 dpi line graph and make it a 600 dpi TIFF, the image will still print out as a 72 dpi image, resulting in very poor quality and this may become particularly apparent upon professional printing. The presentation of the figures can affect the quality of your article and in addition, it may not print as well as desired if, for example, you order reprints of your article.
Step 3: Choose Figure Dimensions
After removing all excess white space, figures should be sized depending on article type. For research articles, figures should have a width between 9 cm and 18 cm. For all other article types (essays, reviews, etc.), figures should have a width between 5.5 cm and 18 cm. Regardless of article type, figures cannot have a height of more than 24 cm. All figures will be left-aligned on the page or column, so please design accordingly.
Research Articles
- Width: 9 cm–18 cm (or ~3.5 in–7 in)
- Height: 1 cm–24 cm (or ~0.5 in–9.5 in)
All Other Article Types
- Width: 5.5 cm–18 cm (or ~2.2 in–7 in)
- Height: 1 cm–24 cm (or ~0.5 in–9.5 in)
All figures will be left-aligned on the page or column, so please design accordingly.
Left-Aligned Figure
*Stereo figures should be sized 63 mm from the center of the left image to the center of the right image.
Step 4: Choose Figure Text
Label your figure panels with in Arial bold font, 12 point, with capital letters. Do NOT use any punctuation (no periods or brackets)! All other figure text must be in Arial font, between 6 and 10 points.
One issue to keep in mind when submitting figure files is that in the published version of the paper, figures will be sized to fit column widths (1 column width, 1.5 widths or 2 column-widths). Figures may also be individually resized so that the smallest-font text is 6-point text. The best way to ensure that your figures appear in the manuscript as you intend them is to pre-size your figures to fit column widths (or 1.5 widths, 2 widths etc.) and simultaneously make certain that the smallest font size in each figure is 6-point. It is also advisable to make the largest font size (this is usually the panel label) is the same point-size across all figures, and to be certain that all figures are submitted at the appropriate resolution.
Always embed fonts when using vector file types. Special symbols and Greek characters will not reproduce properly unless you embed the fonts.
Step 5. Choose File Format/Size
Each figure (including all supporting information figures) must be under 10 MB to optimize online accessibility.
You may submit your image files in these formats*:
- Highly preferred: .EPS, .PDF, and .TIFF
- Also accepted: .AI, .PPT, .PSD, .DOC, .JPG**, .BMP
- If you need to submit figures in a zipped archive, please contact a PLoS editorial assistant during submission to ensure that all the files are uploaded properly.
When saving as .TIFF files, please choose compression option LZW (this will greatly reduce file size while retaining quality). Some programs may downsample your images to low resolution. Do not use the "optimize for Web" wizard in PowerPoint or PhotoShop for any figures.
* Please note: PLoS ONE will only accept figures in .TIFF or .EPS format and no others.
** .JPG is a lossy file format. Every time you save a .JPG, quality is lost and pixels are actually thrown away with each successive save. Please submit first-generation .JPGs only.
Step 6: Upload Video and Motion Graphics
We encourage authors to submit multimedia files that are crucial to the conclusions of the paper. Video files should be submitted as uncompressed .AVI, .MOV, .WMV, or .RV files, and PLoS will compress the files to an appropriate size and quality.
Other multimedia files (e.g., .SWF) should be smaller than 10 MB in size because of the difficulties that some users will experience in loading or downloading files.
Step 7: Upload Tables
All tables must be cell-based, such as would be produced in a spreadsheet program–acceptable file types are DOC, RTF, and XLS (not PDF).
There can be no picture elements; no text boxes, no tabs, no returns within in the table.
All columns must have a header and subheads should always be in a separate column.
 |
 |
Example of incorrect subheads and use of text boxes |
Example of acceptable table |
Tables should not occupy more than one printed page (7inches x 9.5inches). Very large tables will be published as online supplementary files.
Tables need a concise title.
Line rules should only be used for mathematical equations (i.e. TOTAL).
Getting Help
For questions concerning the above guidelines, or further advice about preparing figures, contact figures@plos.org.