TEB: Figures guidelines

[Chris Warburton]

Electronic Figure Submission

Supply all figures electronically.

Indicate what graphics program was used to create the artwork.

For vector graphics, the preferred format is EPS; for halftones, please
use TIFF format. MSOffice files are also acceptable.

Vector graphics containing fonts must have the fonts embedded in the
files.

Name your figure files with "Fig" and the figure number, e.g., Fig1.eps.

NOTE: We can render a directory, rather than just a PDF, to ensure that
we include everything, with appropriate names.

Line Art (e.g. our flow chart)

Definition: Black and white graphic with no shading.

Do not use faint lines and/or lettering and check that all lines and
lettering within the figures are legible at final size.

All lines should be at least 0.1 mm (0.3 pt) wide.

Scanned line drawings and line drawings in bitmap format should have a
minimum resolution of 1200 dpi.

Vector graphics containing fonts must have the fonts embedded in the
files.

Combination Art (I think our graphs qualify as this)

Definition: a combination of halftone and line art, e.g., halftones
containing line drawing, extensive lettering, color diagrams, etc.

Combination artwork should have a minimum resolution of 600 dpi.

Figure Lettering

To add lettering, it is best to use Helvetica or Arial (sans serif
fonts).

Keep lettering consistently sized throughout your final-sized artwork,
usually about 2â??3 mm (8â??12 pt).

Variance of type size within an illustration should be minimal, e.g., do
not use 8-pt type on an axis and 20-pt type for the axis label.

Avoid effects such as shading, outline letters, etc.

Do not include titles or captions within your illustrations.

Figure Numbering

All figures are to be numbered using Arabic numerals.

Figures should always be cited in text in consecutive numerical order.

Figure parts should be denoted by lowercase letters (a, b, c, etc.).

If an appendix appears in your article and it contains one or more
figures, continue the consecutive numbering of the main text. Do not
number the appendix figures,

"A1, A2, A3, etc." Figures in online appendices (Electronic
Supplementary Material) should, however, be numbered separately.

Figure Captions

Each figure should have a concise caption describing accurately what the
figure depicts. Include the captions in the text file of the manuscript,
not in the figure file.

Figure captions begin with the term Fig. in bold type, followed by the
figure number, also in bold type.

No punctuation is to be included after the number, nor is any
punctuation to be placed at the end of the caption.

Identify all elements found in the figure in the figure caption; and use
boxes, circles, etc., as coordinate points in graphs.

Identify previously published material by giving the original source in
the form of a reference citation at the end of the figure caption.

Figure Placement and Size

Figures should be submitted separately from the text, if possible.

When preparing your figures, size figures to fit in the column width.

For most journals the figures should be 39 mm, 84 mm, 129 mm, or 174 mm
wide and not higher than 234 mm.

For books and book-sized journals, the figures should be 80 mm or 122 mm
wide and not higher than 198 mm.

Permissions

If you include figures that have already been published elsewhere, you
must obtain permission from the copyright owner(s) for both the print
and online format. Please be aware that some publishers do not grant
electronic rights for free and that Springer will not be able to refund
any costs that may have occurred to receive these permissions. In such
cases, material from other sources should be used.

Accessibility

In order to give people of all abilities and disabilities access to the
content of your figures, please make sure that

All figures have descriptive captions (blind users could then use a
text-to-speech software or a text-to-Braille hardware)

Patterns are used instead of or in addition to colors for conveying
information (colorblind users would then be able to distinguish the
visual elements)

Any figure lettering has a contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1