DPI for Journal Publication

[Ashley Richardson]

Hello,

I am struggling to change a couple of Excel graphs to 600 dpi, from the original 150 dpi without changing the dimensions for the journal Sports Biomechanics. Currently if I manipulate the DPI the image shrinks when I upload it to the journal. If any of you have a quick method of changing this it would be most appreciated.

Many Thanks,

Ashley

[John Rasmussen]

Re: DPI for Journal Publication

Hi Ashley,

The journal likely requires the image on a pixel-based format. Such a format has limited resolution and to ensure press quality they require a lot of pixels. On the way from Excel to the journal, the pixel formats may go through several conversions and you can lose quality. I therefore usually try to keep the image on vector formats with infinite resolution as far as possible in the process.

The following might work:

1. Create the chart in Excel.
2. Copy it to the clipboard.
3. Paste it into a PowerPoint slide using the option "Paste as Enhanced Metafile". This preserves the vectors from the original chart in Excel as much as possible while flattening the image and breaking links back to the data.
4. Print the image to pdf using Adobe Acrobat (you need Acrobat installed for this, obviously). Before printing, turn off compression of the image in the printing options or select "press quality".
5. When the pdf file is opened, save it as an eps file or other format that the journal will accept.

Good luck,
John