ARTWORK GUIDELINES 26 JUN 19

Introduction

Submitting your illustrations, pictures and other artwork (such as multimedia and
supplementary files) in an electronic format helps us produce your work to the best
possible standards, ensuring accuracy, clarity, and a high level of detail.

This guide will show how to prepare your artwork for electronic submission and
includes information and suggestions on how to produce the best results and deal
with common problems, a brief summary of which follows below:

• All figures should be supplied in our preferred file formats.

• All figures should be supplied as separate files, unless you are using LaTeX.
• The figure files should be named in a logical way (e.g. [first author surname]
Fig1.tif).
• Please ensure that the material you submit is of the best possible quality. We
cannot improve overall appearance and resolution.
• Resolution: colour and black and white halftone images must be saved at 300
dpi (dots per inch) at approximately the final size. Line drawings should be
saved at 1000 dpi, or 1200 dpi if very fine line weights have been used.
Combination figures must be saved at a minimum of 600 dpi.
• If in any doubt, submit the source files that were used to create your figures.

Preferred file formats

Cambridge Core recommends that only TIFF, EPS, or PDF formats are used for
electronic artwork.

• TIFF (Tagged Image File Format) is the recommended file format for line art,
greyscale, and colour halftone images. TIFF files should be compressed once
created, ensuring file sizes are kept to a minimum to aid easy file transfer.
When saving as TIFF format, please ensure that LZW compression is applied.
o File extension: .tif
o Recommended for: all images
o Note: Virtually all common artwork creation software is capable of
saving files in TIFF format; this 'option' can normally be found under
the 'Save As...' or 'Export...' commands in the 'File' menu.

• EPS (Encapsulated PostScript) For vector graphics, EPS files are the
preferred format. An EPS file is an image that has been created using the
language of PostScript, and is generally resolution independent.
o File extension: .eps
o Recommended for: line and combination artwork
o Note: Virtually all common artwork creation software is capable of
saving files in EPS format; this 'option' can normally be found under the
'Save As...' or 'Export...' commands in the 'File' menu.
 • PDF (Portable Document Format) This format is very similar to EPS. Before
saving an image as a PDF it is important to make sure that the fonts are
embedded and that the original images are at the correct size and resolution.
To check this visually you can zoom in when viewing the PDF on screen.

Non preferred but usable formats

o JPEGs
o Microsoft PowerPoint files
o Images created in Microsoft Word
o GIF images downloaded from the web

The above files are generally NOT suitable for conversion to print reproduction.
While JPEG and GIF are good formats for images online, they are not ideal for print.
JPEG is a 'lossy' format, which means that it loses colour information. This is not
normally an issue on a computer monitor, but is noticeable in print. While a high-
quality JPEG can be used, particularly for photographs, TIFF is the preferred format.
GIF has a lack of colour depth and so images may appear 'posterised' in print. While
a high-resolution GIF can be used, again TIFF is the preferred format. Excel can be
used to prepare graphs and the EPS files can be produced using the 'Print' option
outlined above. PowerPoint should be used with caution as this application is
intended for producing visual presentations rather than print output, but with care can
produce quality artwork.

Types of illustrations

Line illustrations

Line art is any image that consists of distinct straight and curved lines placed against
a plain background without gradations in shade or colour. Line art is usually
monochromatic but can use lines of different colours.

• Line illustrations (such as graphs, charts, maps) should be provided in TIFF

(.tif) or vector EPS (.eps) format. If an electronic file is unavailable, always try
to supply the original rather than a copy scanned from the original artwork.
• Please provide the original file in either TIFF format, saved at a minimum of
1000 dpi, or vector EPS format, at the correct size for reproduction in the
journal.
• Do not use line weights that will be less than 0.3 pt at final size. Although line
weights of less than this will show up on your computer screen and laser print-
out, they may not appear when printed. For prominent lines (e.g. plot lines on
graphs) the weight should be approximately 1 pt.
• Maths labels should be typed exactly as they appear in the text. For example
if a symbol appears in italic in the text or equation, it should also appear in
italic in the figure.
 • Common packages such as Adobe Illustrator have options which allow you to
output to TIFF or EPS, and we would prefer it if you could supply your files in
either of these formats.

Halftone illustrations

A halftone can be colour (CMYK) or black and white, and is an image with
continuous tone, such as a photograph or micrograph.

• Halftones should be provided in TIFF (.tif) or vector EPS (.eps) format. If a

TIFF format file is not available, please provide a JPEG file.
• Halftones should be saved at a minimum resolution of 300 dpi.
• Prepare all black and white illustrations in black and white, or greyscale colour
mode, and colour illustrations in CMYK colour mode.
• Do not submit colour images for conversion to black and white if you can
avoid it. When converted there may be a loss of contrast and detail. Details,
such as scale bars, that appear quite obvious in a colour image may be
difficult to differentiate or merge into the background when printed in black
and white.
• When using shading to differentiate areas on the figure, please check your
software to see if there are options such as patterns, textures or a range of
tones (tints) within black.
• The range of tones (tints) in greyscale illustrations should not be less than
15%, and not more than 85%. When creating a scale or using different
densities to highlight areas in the illustration, it is best to use increments of 15
or 20%. Any increments of less than this may be hard to differentiate on the
printed page.
• Most digital cameras produce JPEG images as their standard format, but
some can be set to TIFF. If your camera can be set to produce TIFF format,
please select this option when taking photographs. If your camera does not
allow TIFF as a setting, please set it to produce the highest resolution JPEG
possible. Save the images immediately to TIFF when they have been
downloaded from the camera. To avoid loss of detail from the photograph, do
not change the JPEG in any way before saving to TIFF.

Combination illustrations

A combination illustration is one that contains both continuous tone and line/vector
elements: in short a combination of line art and halftone together (in greyscale and/or
colour). This may be a photograph with labelling, or a micrograph with a scale bar
added, for example. Refer to the guidelines for line illustrations and halftones as they
are all applicable for combination artwork. Because of the necessity to produce clear
and sharp text within the image, the resolution needs to be higher, often resulting in
a larger file size, so it's imperative that LZW compression is used when saving files
in TIFF format to enable easy file transfer.

• Combination images should be supplied in TIFF (.tif) or vector EPS (.eps)

format, saved at a minimum resolution of 600 dpi.
General information

Sizing

It is best to provide your figures at the same size or larger than they will be
reproduced in the printed journal, either by cropping or scaling. Images should be
sized to fit the width of a column or page in the journal you are publishing in. If the
originals you supply are smaller in size than they will appear in the journal, they may
lose some clarity and detail when enlarged. In particular, photographs that have
already been scanned will tend to look pixelated, and line drawings will lose their
sharpness.

Font information

To ensure the best reproduction possible, please ensure that any fonts used to
create or label figures are embedded, and we also recommend that you use the
following Cambridge approved fonts (in 9 pt):

• Arial
• Courier
• Symbol
• Times
• Times New Roman

Failure to use the approved fonts may result in missing symbols or overlapping type
within the illustrations. The font you use should be consistent throughout the artwork.

Figure captions

Please supply captions at the end of the text of your article, and not as part of the
figure files.

Please ensure that every figure is cited within the article. We will try to place your
figures as close as possible to their citations in the text, but because of the
limitations of page layout, it may not always be possible.

Images from the web

Images downloaded from the internet tend to be 'low resolution', that is 72 or 96 dpi,
meaning that they will not provide adequate quality when printed. If you wish to use
an image which appears on a website, please contact the site's administrator, or the
creator of the image, and obtain a copy of the high resolution original. Of course this
isn't always possible so while low resolution internet images are not recommended,
their use is sometimes unavoidable.

Scanning
• If you are providing scanned copies of the original image, please make sure
that you scan at a minimum resolution of 300 dpi, at the final size (or larger
than) they will be reproduced.
• If you wish to reuse an illustration or photograph from a printed book, it is
better to obtain the original artwork than to scan from the printed copy.
Photographs which have already appeared in print may have been scanned
once already; if you scan them again there will be an unavoidable loss of
detail.
• Please note that a high resolution scan of a low resolution original will not
improve the quality in any way.