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164 CAREER ADVICE FOR LIFE SCIENTISTS II

What Happened

to My Figures?!

Liana Holmberg

Public Library of Science

A

fter all the work you put into your research and

getting your article published, it’s a shock to

crack open that journal and find the printed fig-

ures bear little resemblance to the images you thought

you submitted. Here are some suggestions to help min-

imize such unpleasant surprises.

A Few Tips to Take the

Headache Out of Graphics Prep

Do Your Homework.Before you start preparing your

figures, read the graphics specifications published by the

journals you’re most likely to submit to. Specs vary from

journal to journal, and they are often available online

and can be quite instructive. Some important things to

look for are resolution requirements for each type of

graphic, preferred file formats, and page dimensions.

Learn to Use Your Software.Even if it means reading

the dreaded manual. Whether it’s Illustrator, Corel-

Draw, or something else, most of the best graphics pro-

grams perform similar tasks at comparable quality: the

important thing is to learn to use what you have well.

Any program worth the price will have instructions for

converting your graphics to the file formats required by

publishers. Learning to use professional graphics-prep

software can be time consuming, but if you use another

kind of program because you’re more familiar with it,

you’ll be disappointed. Programs like Microsoft Word

automatically downsample your images and embed

Most of the best graphics programs

perform similar tasks at comparable

quality: the important thing is to learn

to use what you have well.