GUIDELINES

FOR FIGURES

• File size should not exceed 50 MB.

• Format should be high-resolution TIFF or JPEG — other formats may not be publication quality.
EXCEPTION: Some programs, such as Word, PowerPoint, and Excel, allow you to “print” to PDF
(choose File/Print and go to the PDF drop-down menu, often in the lower left corner of the
print dialog box; choose “Save as Adobe PDF” if it’s an option, or “Save as PDF” if not; if you’re
given the option to choose the PDF settings, choose “Press Quality”). PDFs from these
programs are often of much higher quality than graphs exported to image formats and will be
accepted.

• Resolution should be as follows:
o 1200 dpi resolution for line graphs and line charts that do not have any color or gray
shading.
o 600 dpi resolution for color figures and grayscale with text.
o 300 dpi resolution for grayscale images, e.g., radiographs.
PLEASE NOTE that it may be necessary to rescan original images or request higher-resolution
originals from the source (such as a hospital imaging department). Simply increasing the
resolution in a photo-editing program can worsen overall image quality.

• Size should be as follows:
o Width of at least 3.3 inches (8.4 cm) for one-column figures; width should include only the
live area of the figure itself and not any white space to the left or right.
o Width of 5–7 inches (12.7–17.8 cm) for two-column figures; width should include only the
live area of the figure itself and not any white space to the left or right.
o The height of any figure should not exceed 9 inches (22.9 cm).
PLEASE NOTE that the final publication size is at the discretion of the Production team.

• Any text in a figure should be sharp and clearly legible with black or white lettering in the
following accepted fonts: Arial, Helvetica, Times, or Times New Roman. Use American English
spellings (e.g., “color” rather than “colour”) and American style for thousands and decimal
separators (e.g., 10,000.00).

• For figures of 3 or more panels, please include the letter of each figure component in either the
upper or lower left corner of each panel. Do not include the figure number or any punctuation (e.g.,
brackets or parentheses). For 2-panel figures, identify the panels in the legend as either “upper”
and “lower” or “left” and “right.”

• Any arrows should be straight and easily discernible from the rest of the figure.

• Do not include figure legends, captions, borders, or footnotes in the figure (footnotes should be
included in the legends in the manuscript text file).
EXCEPTION: If supplemental figures (to be published online at the discretion of the Editor-in-
Chief) are included with your manuscript, the figure number and legend should be included at
the bottom of figure file.

Updated 12/2018