The Lancet Figure Preparation Guide

The Lancet Figure Preparation Guide

Overview

This guide provides the complete specifications for preparing figures for submission to The Lancet and Lancet family journals. A key distinguishing feature of The Lancet is that most figures are redrawn by in-house illustrators into Lancet house style. Therefore, editable source formats (PowerPoint, Word, SVG) are strongly preferred over rasterized images.

Official reference: https://www.thelancet.com/submission-guidelines

Resolution Requirements

TIP: Supply images 20% larger than publication size to ensure quality is maintained after any resizing by the production team.

from PIL import Image

def check_lancet_resolution(image_path):
    """Check if image meets Lancet resolution requirements."""
    img = Image.open(image_path)
    dpi = img.info.get('dpi', (72, 72))

    print(f"DPI: {dpi[0]} x {dpi[1]}")
    print(f"Minimum required: 300 DPI")
    print(f"TIP: Submit at 120% of publication size")

    if dpi[0] >= 300:
        print("PASS: Resolution meets Lancet requirements")
    else:
        print("FAIL: Need at least 300 DPI")

    return dpi[0] >= 300