Background stripping
Removing or replacing a figure's background so it can sit on a slide, poster, or template without a visible box.
Bleed
Extra printed area beyond the trim edge of a poster so that cutting does not leave white margins. Usually 3 mm.
CONSORT diagram
The flow diagram used to report participant progress through a randomised controlled trial.
Colour vision deficiency (CVD)
Reduced ability to distinguish certain colours, most often red and green. Affects roughly 8% of men and 0.5% of women of Northern European descent.
Credit
PaperPict's unit of usage: one generated figure, one regenerated panel, or one poster draft. Edits are free.
DPI (dots per inch)
Print resolution. Journals typically require 300 DPI for photographs, 600 DPI for combination figures, and 1000–1200 DPI for line art at final size.
Editable PPTX
A PowerPoint file in which figure elements are native shapes and text boxes rather than an embedded picture.
Graphical abstract
A single-panel visual summary of a paper's main finding, displayed next to the title in tables of contents and online. Usually sized to a journal-specific pixel dimension.
Image-to-figure
Generating a clean figure from a photograph, hand sketch, or existing image used as a reference.
Journal palette
A set of colours associated with a publisher's house style — for example the Nature, Science, NEJM, Lancet, or JAMA sets — used to keep figures consistent with the target journal.
Layered SVG
An SVG file in which each element or group of elements sits in its own layer or group, so it can be selected, moved, and restyled independently.
Lossless export
A raster export (such as PNG) that preserves every pixel without compression artefacts, as opposed to JPG's lossy compression.
Mechanism diagram
A figure showing how entities interact — typically receptors, enzymes, genes, or components — using arrows that encode activation, inhibition, binding, or transport.
Multi-panel figure
A figure composed of lettered panels (a, b, c…) that share a legend and a consistent style. Common in results sections.
Newick format
A text notation for representing trees using nested parentheses, used to define phylogenies.
Okabe-Ito palette
An eight-colour palette designed by Masataka Okabe and Kei Ito so that all colours remain distinguishable for people with common colour vision deficiencies.
PRISMA 2020
The current reporting guideline and flow-diagram template for systematic reviews and meta-analyses.
Panel lettering
The letters that identify each panel in a multi-panel figure. Journals specify case (a/A), weight, and placement.
Raster image
An image made of pixels (PNG, JPG, TIFF). Sharp only up to its native resolution; cannot be edited element by element.
Reference-to-figure
Generating a figure from a document — an abstract or full paper PDF — by extracting the argument and drawing it.
Region editing
Changing one area or panel of a generated figure while leaving the rest untouched.
Single-column width
The width of a figure that fits one column of a journal page, usually 85–90 mm. Double-column width is around 170–180 mm.
TOC graphic
Table-of-contents graphic; the term used by ACS, RSC, and Wiley for a small graphical abstract.
Text-to-figure
Generating a figure from a written description of its content.
Vector image
An image defined by geometric paths and text (SVG, PDF, EPS). Scales without loss and can be edited element by element.
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