Supplementary information

Table of contents:

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1. General 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).

  • Nature strongly encourages authors to include a simple schematic as Figure 1 of their SI that summarises the main finding of the paper, where appropriate (for example, to assist understanding of complex detail in cell, structural and molecular biology disciplines).

  • SI is not subedited 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 posted on the freely available part of our 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.

  • We do not take responsibility for the maintenance of any links or e-mail addresses provided in SI.
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2. Content

We recommend that, in all sections of the journal except Brief Communications Arising (for which Supplementary Information is not permitted), Supplementary Information in the following "flat" (text or figure) categories is combined into a single PDF, laid out as you wish readers to download it. Each legend should be written directly beneath its figure.

  1. Supplementary Figure(s) and Legend(s)
  2. Supplementary Methods
  3. Supplementary Table(s)
  4. Supplementary Discussion
  5. Supplementary Equation(s)
  6. Supplementary Notes (including notes clarifying statistical analyses, acknowledgements, grant or other numbers)
  7. Supplementary Video Legend(s)
  8. Supplementary Audio Legend(s)

If you provide each piece of SI as a single file, each file will be posted separately within the SI for your article, so readers will have to download each component individually. For this reason, we suggest that authors with the appropriate software combine their "flat" SI into a PDF for online publication.

See section 3 for advice on file sizes. Briefly, PDFs should be as small as possible but can be up to 5 MB if necessary.

Some types of SI (listed below) are either best presented in editable format or cannot be presented as PDF for technical reasons. Please supply these types of SI in one of our allowable formats. They will be published with the PDF of the rest of your SI, downloadable as separate files.

  1. Supplementary Data
  2. Supplementary Video(s)
  3. Supplementary Audio(s)

Tips and hints for presentation of SI.

  • SI sections should be classified as one of the eleven categories above (contact the handling editor if you wish to submit material that is not covered by one of these categories).
  • Please display figure legends beneath the relevant figure.
  • Please note that 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. Authors who nevertheless wish to post reference lists should use the "Supplementary Notes" category and continue the numbering from the last reference listed in the print version, rather than repeating the numbering in the print version.
  • 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).
  • With your SI, please include an additional "SI Guide" text file named SIGuide.doc. This should contain:
    1. A title for each file (for example, for a merged PDF: Supplementary Figures and Legends 1-4; Supplementary Methods; Supplementary Notes. For example, for SI supplied as separate files: Supplementary Figure 1).
    2. A text summary for each file (no more than 50 words) that describes the contents of the file. Descriptions of individual figures or tables should be provided if these items are submitted as separate files. For SI submitted together in one PDF, the description should indicate how many figures and what type of text are contained within the file, and provide a general description of what the figures collectively show. These summaries will be displayed in the SI Table of Contents as a guide for readers.
    3. The file type and file size in parentheses.

      4. For example:

      Supplementary Video 1

      This movie shows the dorsal view of a wild-type embryo labelled with X to reveal cell movements. The time lapse covers a period of about X min, during which time a new X is established. By following cells during the course of the movie, it is evident that there are rearrangements of cells during X formation (QuickTime; 3 MB).

  • Ensure that each piece of SI (or, if appropriate, "Supplementary Information" in general) is referred to at least once in the print version of the paper at an appropriate point in the text, and after references using the following sentence: "Supplementary Information is linked to the online version of the paper at www.nature.com/nature." If you have provided a schematic or other device to assist the non-specialist reader as SI, it is especially helpful to refer to this explicitly in the first non-bold paragraph or other appropriate place in the print version.

3. Format and file sizes

  • Ensure that file sizes are as small as possible so that users 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).
  • We prefer to accept no more than ten files, with a total size not normally exceeding 3 MB. Sound/movie files may be up to 10 MB per file; colour PDFs/PowerPoint may be up to 5 MB per file; all other general file types may be up to 2 MB per file but most files will be much smaller.
  • We accept files in any of the following formats:
    • Adobe Acrobat (.pdf) (preferred)
    • MS Word document (.doc)
    • 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.

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4. Submitting Supplementary Information

  • For intitial submissions, SI can be submitted online with the rest of the paper via our online submission sevices.
  • When a paper with SI is accepted, SI in its final form can be included on the disk containing the main text and figures (see Editorial contacts for postal addresses).
  • The disk must be labelled with the corresponding author name and manuscript number, file names and formats of text, figures and "SI". For SI and figures, the disk's label should also list file types (program format).
  • 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.
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5. Supplementary Information checklist

Please check the following when submitting SI:

  1. Each piece of SI designated to one of twelve categories with a separate numbering system from that used for figures and tables in the print version of the paper.
  2. Formats are among those accepted by Nature.
  3. Total size of all files does not exceed 3 MB (unless sound/movie file).
  4. SIGuide.doc text file submitted containing titles of each SI file, descriptive summaries, file format types and file sizes.
  5. Hard copy of SI provided.
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6. Microarrays and other databases

Please see the MGED open letter specifying microarray standards.

  • Authors submitting manuscripts containing microarray data must supply the data as SI on a CD at the time of submission. Five copies of the CD are required.
  • The data must be MIAME-compliant, with all variables completed.
  • We also require submission of microarray data to the GEO or ArrayExpress databases, with accession numbers at or before acceptance for publication.
  • See Nature editorial of 26 September 2002 for further details and explanation.
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