These Figure Guidelines are intended to aid our authors in providing figures that will reproduce well in both print and online media. Please email the Editorial Office at johc{at}u.washington.edu if you have any questions regarding these guidelines or submission of your figures to JHC. We have provided a glossary to explain some of the terms used in these guidelines. These terms have been linked back to their glossary definitions in numerous locations, and clicking on them will open a new window with the definition. Failure to send electronic images that follow these guidelines can result in significant delays in the review and publication processes, and can incur charges if the Editorial Office must make alterations to the provided electronic figures.

Digital Art Primer

For a primer on JHC's Digital Art requirements, please see this PDF, which provides exmaples of figure types we commonly publish, and briefly details some Dos and Don'ts of figure preparation. We also have a checklist available.

Basics

• Because JHC uses digital review and production systems, all submitted figures must be sent to us in electronic format.
• Figures must be submitted for review as they are intended for publication with regards to color, sizing, and layout (see below).
• Please assemble, arrange, label, and size each figure, then save it as an individual, complete composite.
• If the image files received are not as intended for publication, and require work on the part of the production staff to use them for review or publication, authors will be charged a rate of $100US/hour for figure work. Send us your final, production-ready, completed figures.

Sizing

• JHC publishes all figures in portrait orientation.
• The maximum size available on a published page for a figure is 17.1 cm wide (6.75 inches) by 22.2 cm high (8.75 inches). Images must be sized to fit within this area. Any images submitted larger than this maximum size in height or width will be reduced.
• For the best results, size illustrations at precisely 8.3 cm (3.25 inches) wide, 11.7 cm (4.67 inches) wide, or 17.1 cm (6.75 inches) wide.

Layout

• Routing: Place a uniform 1-2mm space between adjacent panels or figures in a plate (known as routing). All routing between figures must be white. JHC does not publish black or colored routing. Please see the following example from JHC:
  
  


• Insets: Insets should have at least 1-2mm of routing separating them from a back panel.
• Arrangement: If figure panels or images are not all of uniform sizing and do not produce a uniform edge, leave the right-hand side and bottom of the figure uneven (ragged-right and ragged-bottom). Do not leave uneven left or top edges.
• Numbering: Figures should be numbered consecutively using Arabic numerals (1, 2, 3, etc.).

Labeling

• Apply figure and panel numbering and lettering (eg. 1, 3A, 5F') to lower left corner of each panel, unless data will be obscured. Place a figure or panel label in an alternate corner of the panel if it will obscure the data of the figure, but use the same label positioning throughout the figure set.
• Use upper-case lettering for panels (eg. A, B, etc.), not lower-case lettering.
• Labeling Fonts: Limit your labeling fonts to one of the following: Times, Times New Roman, Arial, Frutiger, or Sabon. Use the same font throughout your figure set. Other fonts cannot be guaranteed to reproduce properly.
• Micrographs should have a scale bar, with the size indicated if it is not in the figure legend.
• JHC does not publish magnification sizes in figure legends or on figures. Please use scale bars and scale bar sizes.

Color

• Figures must be submitted and reviewed in the same format as intended for publication. JHC does not review figures in color if they are intended for grayscale publication. If a figure intended for grayscale is submitted as a color figure, and sent to production as a color figure, authors will be billed for processing of the color figure.
• UPDATED! - All figures must be submitted in RGB color format. Figures submitted in CMYK color will be returned to the authors with a request that they be reproduced in RGB. JHC publishes figures in its online edition (the edition of record) in RGB color, and figures in its print edition in CMYK. We encourage you to convert copies of your color figures from RGB to CMYK using photo-editing software, so that you can be aware of what image detail may be lost in the conversion for the print Journal, but please be sure to submit only RGB images for review and publication.
• We strongly recommend applying color profiles to your image files before submitting them to JHC. JHC will perform the best possible RGB to CMYK color conversions for print publication, but if a figure is supplied without a color profile, we cannot guarantee the conversion of the colors. Authors will not be supplied with a copy of the CMYK images for confirmation.
• Color Figure Charges - Color production for the first color figure file up to one full Journal page in size is free, and due only afte a paper has been Accepted for publication. Each additional color figure file is $300US. Color figure files that are presented separately will be processed separately, and for billing purposes will be considered separate figures. Authors are encouraged to consolidate color figures in as few files as possible.

Figure Types

Figures published in JHC fall into one of three categories: Half-tone figures, Line-art figures, and Combination figures. (Click on any linked word in the brief descriptions below to open a window with a more expanded definition and examples.)

• Half-tone figures are composed of photographic panels and have no labeling, text, or lettering outside the panels, and no graphs, schematics, or drawings. Half-tones are also called rasterized images, because they are composed of a series of dots (pixels). The resolution of a half-tone often determines its quality. Half-tones are best suited for figures continaing micrographs, photographs, or scanned images and are mostly commonly saved as TIFFs or Bitmaps (BMP).
• Line-art figures are composed of drawings, graphs, text figures such as sequences, and schematics. They contain no photographic images. Line-art can be saved in a half-tone format such as TIFF, but in order for the fine detail of the lines and text to be visible, the resolution must be very high. Half-tone formats are not well suited to line-art, and we recommend they be avoided in favor of proper vector graphics formats such as PDF, EPS, and Metafiles.
• Combination (combo) figures are composed of any combination of half-tone and line-art images in a single figure. They generally reproduce best when treated like a line-art figure, and should be composed in a vector graphics, desktop publishing, or presentation program (Adobe Illustrator, Microsoft Powerpoint, Adobe InDesign, Canvas).

Electronic File Requirements

Each figure type has specific production requirements that define the file formats and quality that must be sent to the Journal at submission. Although there are a wide variety of software and image file types available for producing figure image files, JHC only supports specific subsets of them. Please check our lists of supported and unsupported file formats and programs before submitting your figures.

The following four paragraphs detail our general file format guidelines and the specific requirements of the three figure types published in JHC. Figure files that meet these requirements can be optimized for the best possible reproduction in print and on-line media. We encourage authors to email the Journal Office (johc{at}u.washington.edu) and ask questions regarding figure file formats.

Basic Requirements

If your figures were originally laid out, labeled, and produced in one of the file types we support, always send your source files when submitting your paper. These will produce the best results for production. Do not send files exported from the source figure unless you are using a program that is not supported by the JHC Editorial Office. Exported image files are generally not of sufficient resolution to use in publication.

Export figures made in unsupported programs as high-resolution PDFs, EPS files, or TIFF files. When exporting from unsupported software to a rasterized (half-tone) format, the resolution of the exported image file must meet the requirements listed in the bullet-points below for each figure type.

Click here for specific information about submitting figures as PDFs.

Please do not send JPGs or other low-resolution rasterized formats such as GIFs or PNGs. These formats can lose image quality over successive file saves, and JHC cannot use them for publication.

Do not use the "Image Resize" or "Image Size" options in programs such as Photoshop, Paint Shop Pro, or PhotoEditor to raise the resolution of your half-tone images. This can result in distorted, poor-quality figures. If the resolution was too low when the image was made (eg. less than 300 DPI), it will need to be re-made.

Special note for Photoshop CS users: If you are submitting a TIFF that was produced in Adobe Photoshop CS (version 8.0), do not leave the TIFF layered; flatten the TIFF, or send it as a PSD (Photoshop Document) file instead. Layered TIFFs are very large files (larger than usual for a TIFF!) and will take a considerable amount of time to upload to our site.




Half-tones

Half-tone image file resolution must be at least 300 DPI at the size intended for publication. Our preferred file formats are TIFF and Bitmap.

If you use a program such as Microsoft Powerpoint to label your half-tone figure, be sure that any embedded half-tone images (gels, micrographs) have at least 300 DPI when they are embedded.




Line-art

Graphs should be embedded in their native graphing format into Microsoft Word document files, Microsoft Powerpoint slides, or exported as EPS files or high-resolution PDFs. Please do not send unembedded graphs from any program other than Microsoft Excel, as we do support other graphing software. Please do not export your graphs as JPGs or TIFFs from graphing software, because these seldom have the resolution required for publication.

Line-art drawn in or exported as a rasterized file format (TIFF or Bitmap) must have a minimum resolution of 800 DPI at the size intended for publication. Lower resolutions cannot be used.

Restrict any fonts you use in your line-art figures to Times, Times New Roman, Sabon, Frutiger, and Arial.




Combination Images

Combos follow the same guidelines as Line-art with regard to Fonts and minimum resolutions.

Combos will reproduce better if they are assembled in a desktop publishing, vector graphics, or presentation program that we support. If you choose to use one of these programs, please be sure to embed any half-tone images with a minimum of 300 DPI.

File Formats We Do (and Don't) Support

Supported Programs



Our list of supported proprietary file formats and versions is as follows:

Microsoft Powerpoint (PPT), Word (DOC), Excel (XLS), Publisher, and PhotoEditor [Office 2003 versions and older]

Adobe Photoshop (PSD), Illustrator (AI), InDesign (INDD), and PageMaker (P65, PM) [CS versions and Older]

Canvas [version 8.0 and older]

Quark Express [all versions]

PDF [all versions except Photoshop PDF - these are rasterized PDFs and cannot be used for production; click here for more information on submitting figures as PDFs]




Supported non-proprietary file types are as follows:

EPS (Encapsulated Postscript - please note, Photoshop EPS files are not true EPS files!)

PS (Postscript)

BMP (Bitmap)

TGA (Targa)

TIFF (Tagged Image File Format)


Unsupported Programs



We currently do not support proprietary image file types from the following programs:

Corel Draw (CDR files)

Jasc Paint Shop Pro (PSP files)

Macromedia Freehand (FH5, FH7, etc.)


Figure made in any unsupported program must be exported as high-resolution PDFs, EPS files, or TIFF files, or they must be remade in one of our supported programs. Click here for specific information about submitting figures as PDFs.



We currently do not support the following non-proprietary file types:

JPG

PNG (Portable Network Graphics)

GIF


Figures sent to us in these formats will not be used for production purposes. The quality of figures saved in these file formats is compromised, and can often result in poor reproduction. Please send figures in the supported non-proprietary formats such as TIFF and BMP.

Compression and Encryption Formats


• Do not encrypt your figure files in any way when submitting them.
• Do not use the following compression formats when submitting your figures: ARJ, RAR, HQX, Stuffit.
• Zip and tar.gz (UNIX) compression should not be used when figures are submitted via the online review system, but can be used when uploading to our FTP server.
• TIFF files can be saved with LZW compression.

Submitting Figures as PDFs

Adobe's Portable Document Format (PDF) supports the embedding of half-tone and line-art images in documents, which potentially allows authors to submit their figures as PDF files. However, because the purpose behind PDFs is for resulting files to be 'portable', the images embedded in a PDF document are commonly compressed or 'down-sampled', by default, to a lower resolution. 150 DPI and 72 DPI are the two common resolutions used, and these values are far too low for production purposes. If you choose to send PDFs of your figures for review and publication, you must make sure that the highest possible resolution is used when the PDF is produced. Pay careful attention to the following:

• When using the Adobe PDF print driver or Adobe Distiller options, be sure to set your job quality setting or output format to 'Press Quality'.
• Turn off/Disable any image compression or downsampling.
• Embed all fonts.
• Turn off/Disable any alterations to color output (specifically, use the setting 'Leave Color Unchanged').
• Do not save a PDF in any rasterized format, such as a Photoshop PDF. These PDFs are not scaleable and cannot be used for production purposes.

Submitting Your Figures

Figure File Submission with the JHC Online Review System


• You must send production-quality image files (see file guidelines for specifics) with your manuscript, whether it is a revised paper or a new submission.


• Full-size production-quality images will often be very large files, and uploading them can take a long time. If your files are particularly large, or if you have a large number of figures, you can request an FTP account on the Journal's FTP server. You will be sent a login and password, and instructions for using the server. Once your figures are uploaded, the Journal staff will place them on the review system website. Please email FTP access requests to <johc{at}u.washington.edu>, and make sure to specify the accession number of your article (if you have received one), the corresponding author, and the manuscript title. Tell us approximately how many figures you will be transmitting, and if you know, the total size of all of the figure files. If you choose to upload your figures via the web interface of the JHC Review System, please be patient while the files upload. While the figures convert to PDFs you can log out, and return later to view and approve the resulting PDFs.


• For file types that are not listed as an option for upload in the JHC Online Review System but that are supported, please send your figures on a CD, DVD, or Zip Disk via express mail to this address, or request an FTP account as described above.

Hardcopy Figure File Submission via Mail


• Submit one production-quality print set of figures and one complete set of production-quality figure image files with the manuscript. Hard copy submissions will not be considered without image files of your figures. Do not send low-resolution image files (less than 300 dpi at the size intended for publication) for your figures in any format. Send only high-resolution source files. More complete information about these high resolution files can be found here. These files can often be quite large, and will require the use of media with extended storage capacity. Send your production-quality image files on either Zip Disk, DVD (DVD+/-R or DVD+/-RW), or CDROM (CD-R or CD-RW). Do not send other types of media such as Jaz disks, 3.5" floppy disks, SyQuest, Exabyte Tapes, or Magneto-Optical (MO) discs. Zip disks will only be returned upon author request. Requests for returned media must be made via email to johc{at}u.washington.edu, and must indicate the manuscript's accession number and title.


• In the event there is any discrepancy between the hard copy of the manuscript or figures and the digital files supplied, the hard copy will be taken as the definitive version.

Figure Checklist

We have provided a checklist in PDF format as a very brief summary of our electronic figure guidelines. Click here to download the checklist.