The one-page cheat sheet for Nature, Science, and Cell figures — column widths, 300/600 DPI, TIFF/EPS/PDF, fonts, panel labels, scale bars — plus a one-click way to check your figure against them.
Most figure rejections aren't about the science — they're a 2 mm width mismatch, a 96 DPI screenshot, or Calibri where the journal wanted Helvetica. This page is the cheat sheet so that doesn't happen to you, plus a way to check your actual file against it before you upload.
The numbers, at a glance: Nature wants 88 mm (single) or 180 mm (double) — its own final-artwork guide lists 89/183 mm — with 300 DPI photos and vector line art (Nature's guide says "do not rasterize line art"), Arial or Helvetica at 5–7 pt. Science wants 5.7 cm, 12.1 cm, or 18.4 cm (three column widths), vector formats preferred. Cell wants 85 mm or 174 mm, 300 DPI color / 500 DPI B&W / 1000 DPI line art, Arial only, scale bars on every micrograph. Full table below — every value is sourced from the publishers' official pages.
Thousands of researchers use SciDraw AI to make publication-ready figures for papers, grants, and journal submissions — in minutes, with no design skills.
Reading the specs is the easy part — the question is whether your file actually meets them, and you can't tell that by eye. Drop it into the checker and get DPI, dimensions, format, color mode, and journal fit on one screen.
Does your figure pass? Check DPI, size, format, and colorblind safety against Nature/Science/Cell specs in seconds — free daily credits.
Anyone preparing a first or revised submission to Nature, Science, Cell, or their family journals (Nature Methods, Nature Communications, Cell Reports, Science Advances…). Same physical specs, same checklist.
Not your case? Society/specialty journals (ACS, IEEE, RSC) set their own rules — check their "Figure Preparation" page. Preparing a graphical abstract? See Graphical Abstract Requirements by Journal. Just need a PNG turned into journal-grade TIFF? Go straight to the conversion guide.
High-impact journals enforce figure specs because a figure has to reproduce cleanly in print, render correctly online, stay readable for decades, look consistent across articles, and be accessible to all readers. Miss them and you risk a desk-level bounce, a 2–4 week production delay, or quality loss in the final PDF. None of it is about the merit of your work — which is exactly why it's frustrating to get caught by it.
300 DPI photos; line art must stay vector ("do not rasterize line art")
Color
RGB recommended (auto-converted to CMYK for print); CMYK optional
Format
Final artwork: AI, EPS, PSD, PDF, PowerPoint, Word, Excel (Nature's final-artwork guide rejects JPEG, TIFF, PNG)
Max size
Up to 50 MB per figure
Width
88 mm single, 180 mm double (Nature's own artwork guide lists 89 / 183 mm)
Widths in practice: 88 mm for small graphs, single gels, single micrograph panels; 120 mm or 136 mm (1.5 column) for medium graphs and comparative panels; 180 mm for complex multi-panel figures and wide schematics. Full page depth is 247 mm. Note: the two official Nature artwork guides give slightly different widths (88/180 mm vs 89/183 mm) — both are current.
300 DPI photos at initial submission (higher at revision); line-art DPI is set at the revision stage
Color
Not stated on the initial-submission page (set at revision)
Format
Vector preferred (Adobe Illustrator); files must be Photoshop/Illustrator-readable; PowerPoint not accepted
Text
Sans-serif, Helvetica preferred; ~7 pt (not smaller than 5 pt)
Width
5.7 cm (1 col), 12.1 cm (2 col), or 18.4 cm (3 col)
Science prefers vector formats so labels stay editable in production, and keeps figure legends separate from the figure. Panel labels are capital A, B, C at 10 pt bold. (The widely repeated "5.5 cm / 12 cm" is out of date — the official widths are 5.7 / 12.1 cm, plus a third 18.4 cm option.)
300 DPI color, 500 DPI B&W, 1000 DPI line art (at print size)
Color
RGB (red and green should not be used together)
Format
Initial: TIFF or PDF (< 3 MB), JPEG/EPS accepted; final: TIFF, PDF, or CDX ≤ 20 MB
Width
85 mm (1 col), 114 mm (1.5 col), 174 mm (full)
Height
Must fit a single 8.5 × 11 in page
Font
Arial only, fonts embedded
Cell's non-negotiables: scale bars on every microscopy panel (in the image, not the legend), MW markers on every blot, inline statistical annotations (*, **, ***), and complete (often long) legends. Widths above are for Cell's 2-column journals (Cell, Molecular Cell, Neuron); other Cell Press families (Joule, Matter, iScience…) use different widths.
If you're starting fresh rather than fixing an existing file, set the document up correctly from the first click.
1. Plan the layout — single vs multi-column width, panel count, data types, annotations.
2. Set up the canvas. Illustrator: width 180 mm, RGB, 300 PPI. PowerPoint: slide 18 cm wide, export at 300+ DPI.
3. Draft the illustration with AI. Constrain it to journal style in the prompt:
Nature-style scientific figure of [topic],clean white background, minimal design,sans-serif labels, publication-ready,sized for 180 mm double-column width
Turn that prompt into a figure. Generate the draft, then refine labels and export to spec.
Statistical plots — Bar graph for Nature, [data], error bars (s.d.), significance markers, clean axis labels, no gridlines, white background. Requirements: labeled axes with units, defined error bars, data points when n < 10, significance shown.
Molecular mechanisms — Molecular mechanism for Cell, [mechanism] with steps, standard protein nomenclature, directional arrows, modification sites marked. Requirements: accurate representations, standard nomenclature, clear directionality. → Mechanism Figure Generator.
Microscopy — scale bars mandatory, magnification stated, acquisition in methods, representative images labeled, all processing disclosed and applied uniformly.
Gels / blots — MW markers visible, loading controls, cropping boundaries indicated, full blots in supplementary.
A complete legend has: a brief title, per-panel descriptions, essential methods, statistics (n, test, thresholds), and defined abbreviations.
Figure 1. CRISPR-Cas9 disrupts tumor-suppressor expression.(a) CRISPR targeting strategy for TP53.(b) Western blot of p53 72 h post-transfection in control (Ctrl) and CRISPR (KO) HeLa cells; GAPDH loading control.(c) p53 quantification normalized to GAPDH (n=3, mean ± s.d., ***P<0.001, two-tailed Student's t-test).(d) Immunofluorescence: p53 (green), DAPI (blue). Scale bar, 20 μm.
Three widths: 88 mm (single), 120 / 136 mm (1.5), 180 mm (double) — Nature's own artwork guide lists 89 / 183 mm. Up to 50 MB per figure, 247 mm max page depth. 300 DPI photos; line art must stay vector.
300 DPI for images at initial submission (higher at revision). Science prefers vector formats (Adobe Illustrator) so text stays editable, and does not accept PowerPoint. Widths are 5.7 / 12.1 / 18.4 cm.
300 is the minimum for continuous-tone images (photos, micrographs, gels). 600 is required for line art, where thin lines and small text alias at 300. Mixed figure? Export at 600.
Not by editing metadata. 800×600 at 300 DPI prints at just 2.67 × 2 in, below the 88 mm minimum. You need more pixels — re-export from source at higher resolution, or AI-upscale. Walkthrough: Convert Figures to 300/600 DPI TIFF.
Submit RGB at 300/600 DPI; the publisher handles CMYK conversion. Keep the editable SVG/AI source so you can re-export at new sizes during revision — see Edit SVG Scientific Figures.
Every number above was checked against the publishers' official author pages (last verified July 2026). Journal specs change and vary by journal family — always confirm against your target journal's current page before submitting:
For a filterable, downloadable version covering 10 publishers (Nature, Science, Cell, PLOS, Wiley, Elsevier, Springer, IEEE, RSC, JCI), see the Journal Figure Requirements reference.
Davie Chen is a researcher at the Faculty of Animation and Intermedia, University of Arts in Poznan, studying generative AI for scientific figure creation, patent illustration, and manuscript drafting. SciDraw AI is one of the research-to-product tools built from this work.
