What DPI does eLife require?

300 dpi minimum, combined with a minimum physical width of 10 cm. Both conditions must be met.

What file formats does eLife accept for figures?

TIFF, JPG, EPS, AI and PDF. TIFF files must be 8 bit. Multi page figures are not supported.

Does eLife charge extra for colour figures?

No. eLife has no space or printing constraints, so colour figures are unlimited and carry no additional charge.

Can I submit a table as an image?

No. eLife cannot accommodate tables as figures or figure supplements.

Do eLife figures need to be publication-ready at submission?

The full specifications apply at Version of Record. Because eLife reviews preprints, figures at submission need to be readable for evaluation rather than production ready.

eLife Formatting Requirements 2026: Figures & Limits

eLife requires figures at 300 dpi minimum and at least 10 cm wide, with no limit on how many you include.

The most useful thing to know about eLife's figure requirements is how few of them constrain you. There is no cap on the number of figures, no cap on figure supplements, and no penalty for colour. What eLife does enforce is a resolution floor, a minimum physical width, and a set of rules about what has to be visible inside the figure itself.

If you are coming from a journal that allows ten display items and charges for colour, the adjustment is mostly mental. Here is what actually applies.

eLife publishes its scientific figure requirements in full, and they are unusually permissive on quantity while being specific about legibility.

eLife figure specifications at a glance

Parameter	Requirement
Minimum resolution	300 dpi
Minimum physical width	10 cm
Accepted formats	TIFF, JPG, EPS, AI, PDF — TIFF must be 8-bit
Multi-page figures	Not supported
Number of colour figures	No limit
Number of figure supplements	No limit per primary figure
Upload method	Each figure uploaded individually
Tables as images	Not accepted
Colour scheme guidance	Colour Universal Design (Okabe & Ito)
Animations	Supported as GIF via "Rich Media"
Source data files	One per figure or table, under 100 MB each

How many figures can an eLife paper have?

As many as the science needs. The journal's position is explicit: "eLife does not have space or printing constraints, so any number of colour figures can be included within Research Articles." There is also "no limit on the number of figure supplements for any one primary figure."

Two qualifications matter. First, eLife pairs this with a request that authors "present their results as concisely as possible" — no limit is not an invitation. Second, the freedom is format-specific: Short Reports should carry no more than three or four main display items, and Review Articles run up to 10,000 words with up to eight figures.

The structure eLife supports instead of a hard cap is child figures — figure supplements attached to a primary figure. Each supplement is linked to one main figure, and numbering restarts at 1 for each: Figure 1—figure supplement 1, Figure 1—figure supplement 2, then Figure 2—figure supplement 1. This lets a central figure carry its own supporting panels without competing with the other primary figures for attention.

eLife sets no figure cap — use it

No limit on figures or figure supplements. Produce the extra panels your evidence needs instead of cutting them to fit.

Explore the Tool

What resolution and size do eLife figures need?

A pixelated low-resolution chart panel beside a crisp version, with a bar beneath showing eLife's minimum figure width (illustration generated with SciFig)

300 dpi minimum, and a minimum physical width of 10 cm. Both conditions apply — a 300 dpi image that is only 6 cm wide does not qualify.

Accepted formats are TIFF, JPG, EPS, AI and PDF. If you supply TIFF, it must be 8-bit. Multi-page figures and multi-page figure supplements cannot be displayed, so each figure has to be a single page, uploaded as its own file.

For composite figures, eLife asks authors not to make the figure and its legend so large that they extend beyond a reasonable display area — the constraint on very large composites is legibility, not a stated pixel maximum.

What has to be visible inside an eLife figure

A micrograph panel with a scale bar beside a gel panel with molecular weight markers, the elements eLife requires (illustration generated with SciFig)

This is where eLife is more prescriptive than most journals, and these requirements are about scientific readability rather than production:

Scale bars are required on figures and videos of micrographs
Molecular weight markers are required on figures of gels and blots
Error bars must be explained — the figure or legend has to state clearly what they represent
Figure legends must carry the statistics: which tests were applied, exact sample number, p values, and the criteria for including or excluding data

For gels and blots there is an additional evidence requirement. You must supply both the original, full, unedited files of the raw gels or blots, and versions with the uncropped gels showing the relevant bands clearly labelled. This is an integrity requirement, not a formatting one, and it is not optional.

Colour and accessibility

eLife recommends that authors follow the principles of Colour Universal Design (Masataka Okabe and Kei Ito), choosing colour schemes that remain readable for all types of colour vision.

The same thinking extends to tables. Coloured text and cells "are discouraged in tables because they are less accessible and machine readable" — bold and italics are the preferred way to highlight cells or data.

Because colour is free and unlimited at eLife, the accessibility question replaces the cost question. The constraint on your palette is whether a reader with deuteranopia can distinguish your conditions, not whether the journal will bill you for the page.

Can tables be submitted as images?

No. eLife states it is "unable to accommodate tables as figures or figure supplements." Tables must be supplied as tables, which also means they stay machine-readable and accessible.

Tables presented in an Appendix follow the same formatting as main tables and are labelled Appendix 1—table 1, Appendix 1—table 2, and so on.

Animations, videos and source data

Animated GIFs are supported. Upload them using the "Rich Media" file type, labelled Animation 1, Animation 2, and they can be linked to a main figure as Figure 1—animation 1.

Videos follow the same pattern — uploaded as Rich Media, labelled Video 1, Video 2, or as Figure 1—video 1 when attached to a figure. Each rich media file needs a concise title and legend at the end of the article file.

Source data files should relate directly to a single figure or table, stay under 100 MB each, and be labelled Figure 1—Source Data 1. eLife encourages source data particularly for histograms and summary-data tables. Where it would be unwieldy to put statistical detail in a legend, the source data file can carry it instead.

What eLife's review model means for your figures

eLife reviews preprints. A paper is posted to a preprint server, submitted to eLife, peer-reviewed, and published as a Reviewed Preprint with its reviews and an eLife Assessment attached — regardless of whether it ultimately becomes a Version of Record.

The practical consequence for figure preparation: the specifications above are the ones that apply at Version of Record. Your figures do not need to meet production specification the moment you post a preprint. What they do need is to be readable enough that reviewers — and, because reviews are public, other readers — can evaluate the evidence.

The corollary is that reviewer comments about your figures are published. A figure that draws a "the axis labels are unreadable" comment carries that comment permanently alongside the paper.

Figure problems worth avoiding at eLife

Missing scale bars on micrographs. Explicitly required, and a common revision request.
Gels or blots without unedited originals. Required at submission, not on request.
Legends without exact sample numbers or p values. The legend is where eLife expects the statistics to live.
Tables built as images. Not accepted at all.
Figures below 10 cm wide. The width floor is separate from the dpi floor, and easy to miss.

If you are preparing figures for a journal with no display-item limit, the risk shifts from "will this fit" to "is each panel doing work." A figure that needs a scale bar, labelled bands, statistics in the legend, and a colourblind-safe palette is easier to build correctly the first time than to retrofit — rebuilding an existing figure to add labels, adjust the palette and export at 300 dpi is a faster path than redrawing it.

Fix these problems before you submit to eLife

Rebuild to 300 dpi and 10 cm, add the scale bars and labelled bands, and keep every element editable afterwards.

Try Free

How eLife compares to Nature Communications

	eLife	Nature Communications
Display item limit	None	10 maximum
Line art	TIFF/JPG/EPS/AI/PDF at 300 dpi	Vector required, or 1,200 DPI
Width specification	Minimum 10 cm	88 mm single / 180 mm double column
Colour cost	Free, unlimited	Included
APC	$3,750	$7,350

The two journals sit in similar territory for life-sciences work but take opposite approaches to figure constraint. If your paper's evidence genuinely requires many panels, eLife accommodates it. If you need precise typographic control over how figures reproduce in print, Nature Communications specifies that in far more detail.

Where to go next

The specification above is only one of the things that decides whether an eLife submission goes smoothly.

"Will my figures be allowed if I made them with AI?" — yes, with a disclosure in Materials and Methods, and one category that is banned outright. eLife AI policy.
"What is the submission sequence?" — preprint first, $3,750 charged when review starts rather than on acceptance. eLife submission guide.
"What are the odds it gets reviewed at all?" — 35% in 2025, with declines at a median of eight days. eLife acceptance rate.
"Does eLife have an impact factor?" — no, and the reason is partial indexing rather than anything about the journal's standing. eLife impact factor.

Frequently asked questions

Sources

Every specification here was read from eLife's own author instructions, and applies to the Version of Record. Reviewed 2026.

eLife author instructions — figure formats, resolution, width, supplements, source data, article types and publication fee
About eLife — organisation and publish-review-curate model

We have not tested eLife's submission system directly, so descriptions of what is required at preprint stage versus Version of Record reflect the published guidance rather than observed system behaviour. Author guidelines change without notice — confirm current requirements on eLife's own pages before submitting. See our editorial standards for how these guides are researched and corrected.