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Specifications

Every number in the themes is read from a publisher document. The pages below record which document, which edition, and the date the numbers were last checked against it — a specification is only as trustworthy as that date, because publishers revise their artwork guidelines without notice.

If you find a value that no longer matches what the publisher states, please open a specification correction.

Nature Portfolio (nature)

  • Widths: double 183.0 mm, onehalf 120.0 mm, onehalf_wide 136.0 mm, single 89.0 mm
  • Base font: 7 pt, Arial, Helvetica, Helvetica Neue
  • Panel labels: a at 8 pt
  • save() writes: PDF, SVG, PNG (raster at 300 dpi)
  • Accepted as final artwork: PDF
  • Source: Nature Portfolio, Guide to Preparing Final Artwork — retrieved 2026-07-28
  • Aliases: nature, nature communications, npj

American Physical Society (PRB/PRL) (aps)

  • Widths: double 177.8 mm, onehalf 134.9 mm, single 85.7 mm
  • Base font: 9 pt, Times New Roman, Times
  • Panel labels: (a) at 9 pt
  • save() writes: PDF, SVG, PNG (raster at 600 dpi)
  • Accepted as final artwork: PDF, EPS
  • Source: APS Journals Style Guide for Authors, November 2024 — retrieved 2026-07-28
  • Aliases: aps, physical review b, physical review letters, prb, prl

Elsevier (elsevier)

  • Widths: double 190.0 mm, onehalf 140.0 mm, single 90.0 mm
  • Base font: 7 pt, Arial, Times New Roman
  • Panel labels: (a) at 8 pt
  • save() writes: PDF, SVG, PNG (raster at 500 dpi)
  • Accepted as final artwork: PDF, EPS, TIFF, JPEG
  • Source: Elsevier, Artwork sizing — retrieved 2026-07-28
  • Aliases: acta, acta materialia, elsevier, jncs, journal of non-crystalline solids

IOP Publishing (iop)

  • Widths: double 150.0 mm, single 85.0 mm
  • Base font: 8 pt, Times, Helvetica
  • Panel labels: (a) at 8 pt
  • save() writes: PDF, SVG, PNG (raster at the theme default; no minimum stated)
  • Accepted as final artwork: PDF, EPS, TIFF, PNG, JPEG
  • Source: IOP Publishing, Figures for journal articles — retrieved 2026-08-24
  • Aliases: iop, iop publishing, j. phys. condens. matter, journal of physics, modelling simul. mater. sci. eng.

AIP Publishing (aip)

  • Widths: double 169.9 mm, single 85.0 mm
  • Base font: 9 pt, no typeface stated
  • Panel labels: (a) at 8 pt
  • save() writes: PDF, SVG, PNG (raster at 600 dpi)
  • Accepted as final artwork: PDF, EPS, PS, TIFF, PNG, JPEG, SVG
  • Source: AIP Publishing, Author Instructions — retrieved 2026-08-24
  • Aliases: aip, apl, applied physics letters, jcp, journal of chemical physics

ACS Publications (acs)

  • Widths: double 177.8 mm, single 84.7 mm
  • Base font: 8 pt, Helvetica, Arial
  • Panel labels: (a) at 8 pt
  • save() writes: PDF, SVG, PNG (raster at 300 dpi)
  • Accepted as final artwork: EPS, TIFF, PNG, JPEG
  • Source: ACS Publications, Author Guidelines (ACS Catalysis) — retrieved 2026-08-24
  • Aliases: acs, chem. mater., chemistry of materials, journal of physical chemistry

Royal Society of Chemistry (rsc)

  • Widths: double 171.0 mm, single 83.0 mm
  • Base font: 7 pt, Arial, Helvetica
  • Panel labels: (a) at 8 pt
  • save() writes: PDF, SVG, PNG (raster at 600 dpi)
  • Accepted as final artwork: TIFF, EPS, PDF
  • Source: Royal Society of Chemistry, Author guidelines for Chemical Science — retrieved 2026-08-24
  • Aliases: chemical science, journal of materials chemistry, royal society of chemistry, rsc

IEEE (ieee)

  • Widths: double 181.9 mm, single 88.9 mm
  • Base font: 9 pt, Helvetica, Times New Roman, Arial, Cambria, Symbol
  • Panel labels: (a) at 9 pt
  • save() writes: PDF, SVG, PNG (raster at the theme default; no minimum stated)
  • Accepted as final artwork: PS, EPS, PDF, PNG, TIFF
  • Source: IEEE Author Center, Improve Your Graphics — retrieved 2026-08-24
  • Aliases: ieee

PLOS (plos)

  • Widths: double 190.5 mm, single 66.8 mm
  • Base font: 8 pt, Arial, Times
  • Panel labels: (a) at 8 pt
  • save() writes: PDF, SVG, PNG (raster at 300 dpi)
  • Accepted as final artwork: TIFF, EPS
  • Source: PLOS, Figures — retrieved 2026-08-24
  • Aliases: plos, plos one

Wiley (wiley)

  • Widths: double 180.0 mm, single 80.0 mm
  • Base font: 8 pt, no typeface stated
  • Panel labels: (a) at 8 pt
  • save() writes: PDF, SVG, PNG (raster at 300 dpi)
  • Accepted as final artwork: EPS, PDF, TIFF, PNG
  • Source: Wiley, Guidelines for the Preparation of Figures, 1 September 2016 — retrieved 2026-08-24
  • Aliases: advanced materials, jacers, journal of the american ceramic society, wiley

PNAS (pnas)

  • Widths: double 178.0 mm, onehalf 114.0 mm, single 87.0 mm
  • Base font: 8 pt, Arial, Helvetica, Times
  • Panel labels: (a) at 8 pt
  • save() writes: PDF, SVG, PNG (raster at 600 dpi)
  • Accepted as final artwork: TIFF, EPS, PDF
  • Source: PNAS, Digital Art Guidelines, 16 February 2022 — retrieved 2026-08-24
  • Aliases: pnas, proceedings of the national academy of sciences

Science (AAAS) (science)

  • Widths: double 183.0 mm, single 90.0 mm
  • Base font: 8 pt, Arial, Helvetica
  • Panel labels: a at 10 pt
  • save() writes: PDF, SVG, PNG (raster at 300 dpi)
  • Accepted as final artwork: PDF, EPS, SVG
  • Source: Science (AAAS), Guide to Preparing Figures, 2025 — retrieved 2026-08-24
  • Aliases: aaas, science, science advances

Derived values

APS publishes only the single-column width (8.5 cm / 3 3/8 in). The 1.5- and 2-column values are derived from standard REVTeX two-column geometry — 7.0 in text width with a 0.25 in gutter — and are the only inferred numbers in the package. They are marked DERIVED in _specs.py.

Choices the package makes

One check is not a publisher's requirement. The vector rule fires when an un-rasterized artist holds more than jf.VECTOR_ELEMENT_LIMIT elements, because a figure like that produces a file large enough to be refused by a submission system. No publisher document states a path-count limit; this is the package's own judgement, and it is the only rule here that is not traceable to a source.

Every theme writes PDF, SVG and PNG. Publishers differ on what they accept, but the useful set on disk is the same everywhere: one file to submit, one to edit, one to show. Anything else is available through jf.save(fig, path, formats=[...]).

Accepted-as-final-artwork lists are conservative. They record what this package has read in the publisher's own document, not everything the publisher might take. Elsevier's list comes from its artwork formats checklist ("EPS, PDF, TIFF or JPEG"); the Nature and APS lists have not been verified beyond the formats named in their sizing documents, so an unexpected draft warning there is worth reporting rather than working around.

No theme writes EPS by default. APS documents .eps for colour-online-only figures and Elsevier names it for vector artwork, so both accept it — but the PostScript backend cannot express transparency: any artist with alpha < 1 is silently flattened to opaque, so the EPS stops agreeing with the PDF of the same figure. PDF, SVG, PNG and TIFF all preserve it.

TIFFs are LZW-compressed, which takes a single-column Elsevier figure from 7.8 MB to 132 kB with byte-identical pixels. Elsevier recommends TIFF but documents no compression scheme either way, so this is the package's choice, not theirs — jf.save(fig, path, pil_kwargs={}) writes it uncompressed.