• Supplementary Information (SI) is peer-reviewed material directly relevant to the conclusion of a paper that cannot be included in the printed version for reasons of space or medium (for example, movie clips or sound files).
• SI is not subedited (copy edited) so authors should ensure that it is clearly and succinctly presented, and that the style of terms conforms with the rest of the paper.
• SI is linked to the paper via the online table of contents and the paper itself. If the SI is provided by the author as separate files, it may be published as separate files, although the journal merges files into a single PDF for authors when possible. 
• SI is posted on the freely available part of the journal's website at the time of publication and cannot be hosted solely on the authors' own websites for peer-review or publication purposes. Nor can it be altered by the author after the paper has been accepted for publication.
• Nature journals do not take responsibility for the maintenance of any links or e-mail addresses provided in SI.
• Please note that modification of SI after the paper is published cannot usually be undertaken. Authors are therefore encouraged to check their SI carefully before submitting the final version.

We recommend that Supplementary Information in the following categories be combined into a PDF, laid out as the authors wish readers to download it. Legends should accompany the figures they describe.

Supplementary Figure(s)
Supplementary Figure Legend(s)*
Supplementary Methods
Supplementary Table(s)
Supplementary Discussion
Supplementary Equation(s)
Supplementary Notes (including notes clarifying statistical analyses)
Supplementary Video legends or Audio legends

The following types of Supplementary Information are not suitable for PDF and should be supplied in appropriate format for the medium:

Supplementary data
Supplementary video(s)
Supplementary audio(s)

In cases where figures and legends are submitted as separate files, please display figure legends beneath the relevant figure. (Figures and figure legends submitted in two separate files have to be viewed separately by the user.)

We do not encourage deposition of references within SI as they will not be live links and will not contribute towards citation measures for the papers concerned.

Supplementary tables and figures must have a separate numbering system from that used for tables and figures that apppear in the print version of the paper (the first figure displayed in SI should be labelled "Supplementary Figure 1", the first table "Supplementary Table 1", and so on).

Please include an additional text file according to the instructions of the journal concerned. For Nature, this file is named SIGuide, and for the other Nature journals it is named Manuscript Summary. This file contains information such as a title and text summary for each file, with details of formats and sizes. Detailed instructions are provided in the author information section of the journal's website.

Examples of how to refer to SI in the text of the main paper:

"Table 1 provides a selected subset of the most active compounds. The entire list of 96 compounds can be found as Supplementary Table 1 online."

"The biosynthetic pathway of L-ascorbic acid in animals involves intermediates of the D-glucuronic acid pathway (see Supplementary Fig. 2 online). Figure 2 shows..."

• Ensure that file sizes are as small as possible so that readers can download them quickly.
• Images should be a maximum size of 640 x 480 pixels (9 x 6.8 inches at 72 pixels per inch).
• Ensure that the number and size of files is as few and small as possible, respectively, and conforms with the journal's instructions. In preparing movie files, please edit out unnecessary material, for example frames showing only background. Nature journals upload SI as supplied, so readers will appreciate thoughtful presentation by the author.
• We accept files in the following formats, but authors must check formats in the author information section of the journal that is publishing their work, as not all the Nature journals accept all these formats:

PDF (portable document format) (preferred)

MS Word document (.doc)

Adobe Acrobat (.pdf)

Plain ASCII text (.txt)

Rich Text Format (.rtf)

WordPerfect document (.wpd)

PostScript (.ps)

Encapsulated postcript (.eps)

HTML document (.htm)

MS Excel spreadsheet (.xls)

GIF image (.gif)

JPEG image (.jpg)

TIFF image (.tif)

MS PowerPoint slide (.ppt)

QuickTime movie (.mov) (preferred)

Flash movie (.swf)

Audio file (.wav)

MPEG/MPG animation (.mpg)

Systems Biology Markup Language (.sbml, .xml, .owl)

If your file sizes exceed these limits or if you cannot submit in these formats, please seek advice from the editor handling your manuscript.

For initial submissions, SI can be submitted online with the rest of the paper.

When a paper with SI is accepted, SI in its final form should either be submitted online together with final production-ready files, or submitted on disk, depending on the journal that is publishing the work. Authors should check in the instructions provided in the author information sections of the journal's website.

For those journals requiring submission on disk after acceptance, SI in its final form should be included on the disk containing the main text and figures, if size permits. Otherwise, SI can be provided on a separate, labelled disk(s).

A hard copy of SI must also be provided.

A printed list of file names with a brief description of what each file contains and the file format should be provided with the disk.

Please check the following when submitting SI or when providing it with revised manuscripts:

Each piece of SI designated to one of the categories listed above, with a separate numbering system from that used for figures and tables in the print version of the paper.

Formats are among those accepted by the journal.

Total size of all files is as small as possible and does not exceed journal limits.

Summary text file submitted containing titles of each SI file, brief descriptive summaries, file format types and file sizes.

Hard copy of SI provided (depending on the journal that is publishing the work).