How do I make good quality figures?

[Anonymous Student]

What is the difference between vector graphics and high-resolution images?

I plan to use screenshots of Praat, and then edit them them in a Microsoft office program. Would this give high enough quality figures to include in a paper?

[Simon]

Vector graphics means that a figure is represented by actual lines and text. This means it can be scaled without losing quality. Vector graphics can be created using many drawing packages, provided you export in a suitable format. PDF is usually best.

The alternative is a bitmap or image. Such images are represented by individual pixels. There are many file formats for this (PNG, BMP, JPG). In these formats, you need to have to make sure that the resolution of the image (the number of pixels in the horizontal and vertical dimensions) is high enough.

A good rule of thumb is that, if you actually print your document on A4 paper, you cannot detect the individual pixels in your figures.

Sometimes, you have to use a bitmap format. For example, a spectrogram is inherently an image and not vectors. In these cases, when you take a screenshot, make the window as large as possible on your screen, before taking the screenshot. This will give you the maximum resolution.

[Simon]

Here are some useful guidelines on making good figures.

[Author]

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