Does Nature Communications require a specific format for first submission?

No. Initial submissions are format flexible, and text and figures may be combined into a single file up to 30 MB.

Can I send a pre-submission enquiry?

No. The journal does not consider them and asks for the full manuscript instead.

How long can a Nature Communications paper be?

Main text ideally within 5,000 words excluding abstract, Methods, references and figure legends, with a 15 word title and 200 word abstract.

How much is the Nature Communications APC?

£5,490 / $7,350 / €6,150 plus applicable tax, set by the acceptance date. There are no submission or page charges.

Is there a Word template?

No. Format as double spaced, single column, unjustified text with page numbers in the footer.

Can I transfer a rejected Nature paper?

Yes, via an automated transfer service through a link from the handling editor. Referees' comments transfer with the manuscript.

Nature Communications Submission Guide 2026: Format & Fees

Name: SciFig
Author: SciFig

Nature Communications accepts format-flexible first submissions up to 30 MB, with an APC of $7,350 on acceptance.

Nature Communications makes the first submission deliberately easy and the final submission deliberately exact. Understanding which requirements bind at which stage saves a lot of unnecessary work — and prevents the one mistake that is expensive to undo.

Most of what follows is administrative, but the scientific figure specifications near the end are the ones that cost time if you get them wrong.

Key numbers before you submit


APC	£5,490 / $7,350 / €6,150 plus applicable tax
When it's set	By the acceptance date
Submission / page charges	None
Impact factor	18.1 (2025 JIF, 2026 JCR release; 5-year: 18.9)
Main text	≤ 5,000 words suggested
Title	≤ 15 words
Abstract	≤ 200 words, no references
Display items	Maximum 10 (figures and/or tables)
First submission file size	Up to 30 MB as a single combined file
Pre-submission enquiries	Not considered

The impact factor figures are stated by Nature Portfolio on the journal's own metrics page; the underlying metric is Clarivate's, published through Journal Citation Reports. Our full breakdown of the Nature Communications impact factor covers what the number does and does not tell you. Verify current figures against the publisher and Clarivate before relying on them.

First submission: less formatting than you expect

Diagram contrasting a single combined first-submission file with the separated text and high-resolution figure files required after acceptance (illustration generated with SciFig)

Nature Communications states plainly that it "is flexible with regard to the format of initial submissions" and that "within reason, style and length will not directly influence consideration of a manuscript." No particular structure or format is required at first submission.

Concretely, you may combine manuscript text and figures into a single file — Word, TeX/LaTeX or PDF — up to 30 MB, with figures placed within the text at the appropriate points.

What this means: do not spend a week producing print-specification figure files before you know whether the paper will be sent for review. Prepare figures that are readable, submit, and do the production-grade export after acceptance, when the acceptance letter tells you exactly what is needed.

What it does not excuse: building figures at an arbitrary width. That decision is expensive to reverse later, and it is the one thing worth getting right from the start — see the column-width requirements below.

There are no pre-submission enquiries

The journal does not consider them. Its stated reason: it prefers to make decisions "with all relevant material at hand," so it encourages you to submit the full manuscript instead.

Practically, this removes the informal scope check that some journals offer. Your cover letter has to do that work — briefly stating the importance of the work and why it suits the journal's diverse readership.

Editorial decisions are made by full-time professional editors who are PhD-level scientists, with no external editorial board. Your abstract and cover letter need to convince a scientifically trained generalist that the advance is significant within your field.

That first editorial verdict arrives at a median of nine days — either your paper goes to referees or it is declined without review. Our Nature Communications review timeline guide covers what happens after that, including what each submission status in the tracking system actually means and when a silence is worth an enquiry.

Your cover letter and figures do the convincing

With no pre-submission enquiry, a generalist editor judges the advance from your abstract and your display items.

Explore the Tool

Structure and length

The main text of an Article runs Introduction → Results → Discussion (if appropriate) → Methods.

Main text: ideally within 5,000 words, excluding abstract, Methods, references and figure legends
Title: 15 words maximum
Abstract: 200 words maximum, containing no references
Display items: up to 10 figures and/or tables, depending on word count

A limited number of uncaptioned molecular structure graphics and numbered mathematical equations may be included in addition to the display item allowance.

Word documents: there is no official Nature Communications template. Format as double-spaced, single-column text without justification, with Arabic page numbers in the footer.

LaTeX: use a standard class file such as article.cls, revtex.cls or amsart.cls. Supply all textual material as a single file in default Computer Modern fonts, and avoid non-standard fonts and packages.

The figure requirements that bind at final submission

These apply at publication, not at first submission — but two of them determine how you should build figures from the beginning:

Requirement	Value
Single-column width	88 mm (≥ 1,040 px)
Double-column width	180 mm (≥ 2,080 px)
Line art	Vector — EPS, AI, PDF; or 1,200 DPI if vector is impossible
Photographs	TIFF at 300 DPI minimum, RGB
Figure lettering	Sans-serif (e.g. Helvetica), consistent across all figures
Thinnest line	≥ 1 point

Column width and vector format are the two to respect from day one. Rebuilding a figure at 88 mm after composing it at some other size means re-laying-out every label; converting a flattened bitmap back to vector means redrawing it.

Our complete Nature Communications figure requirements guide covers the full specification including panel labelling, scale bars, chemical structures and the styles the journal explicitly rejects.

Manuscript transfer from other Nature journals

Diagram of a manuscript moving between two journal containers with its review notes travelling alongside, illustrating the Nature Portfolio transfer service (illustration generated with SciFig)

If a paper is rejected from another Nature journal, an automated transfer service can move it to Nature Communications through a link sent by the handling editor. Referees' comments — including confidential comments to the editor — travel with it.

Nature Communications is editorially independent: where a paper could suit more than one Nature journal, the choice of where to submit is the authors'.

Fees and open access

Publishing in Nature Communications requires payment of an article processing charge, since all papers are open access. The current APC is £5,490 / $7,350 / €6,150, subject to VAT or local taxes, and the price is determined by the date the article is accepted — not the date you submit.

There are no submission fees and no page charges. Springer Nature offers APC waivers and discounts for corresponding authors based in the world's lowest-income countries, and maintains funding arrangements with a range of institutions and funders.

AI-generated figures are not permitted

Worth settling before you build your display items, because it is a hard stop rather than a formatting preference. Nature Communications is a Springer Nature journal, and Springer Nature's policy states that while the legal position on AI-generated images remains "broadly unresolved," its journals are unable to permit their use for publication. The ground is copyright, not accuracy — a scientifically correct schematic is still not permitted, and the restriction covers explanatory illustrations, not only images offered as evidence.

Two things catch people out. First, the text side is much more relaxed — substantive LLM use goes in the Methods section and plain copy-editing needs no declaration at all — and none of that carries over to images. Second, the three exceptions Springer Nature names (contracted agency artwork; pieces specifically about AI; tools "developed with specific sets of underlying scientific data that can be attributed, checked and verified for accuracy") are narrow, must be labelled in the image field, and are worth confirming with the editorial office rather than assuming. A separate, lighter rule covers non-generative machine learning applied to an image you already have: permitted, but disclose it in the figure caption for case-by-case review.

Practically: figures for a Nature Communications manuscript need to be drawn by you, and editing a generated image afterwards does not change where it came from. Tools like SciFig still apply to everything that is not the manuscript — grant applications, posters, talks, theses — and to vector and layout work on figures whose content is your own, which is where the 88 mm / 180 mm and vector-format requirements below actually bite. The full breakdown, including how this compares with journals that do allow AI figures, is in Nature Communications formatting requirements.

Additional requirements worth knowing

Source data. For relevant manuscripts, the journal may request a source data file in Excel or a zipped folder, containing at minimum the numerical data underlying graphs and charts, plus uncropped versions of any gels or blots.

Custom code. Previously unreported custom code used to generate results must be made available, and the journal offers a Code Ocean integration for reproducible runs.

Double-anonymised review is available — prepare the manuscript to conceal author identities and tick the relevant box at submission.

Nomenclature. Use approved gene symbols rather than italicised full names (Ttn, not titin). Unapproved proposed gene names must be submitted to the relevant nomenclature committee before publication.

Pre-submission checklist

Full manuscript ready — there is no pre-submission enquiry route
Title ≤ 15 words; abstract ≤ 200 words with no references
Main text within ~5,000 words excluding Methods, references, legends
Display items ≤ 10 total
Figures built at 88 mm or 180 mm column width
Line art in vector format, not flattened
Cover letter states importance and fit for a diverse readership
Combined submission file under 30 MB
Funding confirmed for a $7,350 APC at acceptance, or waiver eligibility checked
Source data and custom code prepared if applicable

When Nature Communications is the wrong choice

Your evidence genuinely needs more than 10 display items — eLife places no limit on figures
No APC funding is available and no waiver applies
You need a pre-submission scope check before committing
Your advance is incremental within a narrow specialty, where a strong field journal reaches your actual readers more directly

Getting figures right before you submit

The figure requirements are where submissions lose the most time, and the two decisions that are expensive to reverse — column width and vector format — are both made when the figure is first created rather than when it is exported.

If you are building figures for this submission, producing them as editable vector output sized to the journal's column widths removes both problems at the source: there is no fixed pixel grid to fall below, and every label stays editable when a reviewer asks for a change.

Get Nature Communications figures right first time

Editable vector output sized to 88 mm or 180 mm — no pixel grid to fall below, and labels stay editable when a reviewer asks.

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Where to go next

"What happens after I click submit?" — 9 days to the first editorial decision, 242 days to acceptance, and a set of status labels that do not mean what they look like. Nature Communications review timeline.
"What exactly do the figures need?" — vector line art, 300 DPI photographs, 88 mm or 180 mm column widths, minimum 1 pt line weight. Nature Communications formatting requirements.
"Is the APC justified?" — impact factor 18.1 and five other publisher-reported metrics, with what each one actually answers. Nature Communications impact factor.

Frequently asked questions

Sources

Every requirement, limit and fee here was read from the journal's own author pages. Reviewed 2026.

Nature Communications — How to submit — submission format, file limits, figure preparation, source data and code policies
Nature Communications — Article content type — word, title, abstract and display item limits
Nature Communications — Open Access Fees and Funding — APC and waivers
Nature Communications — Guide to authors — editorial model, transfers and scope
Nature Communications — Journal Metrics — impact factor

We have not submitted through the journal's manuscript system directly, so the description of what is required at first submission versus after acceptance reflects published guidance rather than observed system behaviour. Author guidelines and fees change without notice — confirm both before you submit. See our editorial standards for how these guides are researched and corrected.