Folio Studio is a figure workspace: a spreadsheet on one side, a layered canvas on the other. Charts read the sheet, labels and brackets sit on top, and the research diagrams a paper or review needs are built in. Studio is free with a Folio account, on every plan.
Your figures
Open Studio to see every figure you have made. Start a new one from a template (bars with error bars, grouped bars, a box plot, a scatter with a trend line, lines with error bars, a heatmap, a two-panel figure, or a blank figure) or from a research diagram. You can search, sort, rename, duplicate and move figures to the trash, restore them, or delete them for good.
Figures save to your account a moment after every edit, so they open on any device. If the same figure is open in two tabs, Studio asks which version to keep rather than overwriting one with the other. Figures made in this browser before Studio saved to accounts can be moved to your account from the Studio home.
Building a chart
Paste a table into the sheet from Excel, Google Sheets or a journal article; formulas work, and numbers read the way they were copied, including European decimal commas. Tick the columns to plot. A column headed SD, SE or CI right after a series becomes its error bars. The chart updates as the numbers change.
Then add layers: titles, text, arrows, shapes, images and significance brackets. Align, stack and lock them like you would in a design tool, and set the chart's theme, palette, fonts, axes and legend in the inspector.
Research diagrams
- PRISMA flow diagrams: the identification-to-inclusion flow of a systematic review (PRISMA 2020), with checks that the counts add up.
- CONSORT flow diagrams: participant flow for a randomized trial (CONSORT 2010), from enrollment through analysis.
- Forest plots: one study per row with its estimate and 95% bounds, pooled with fixed or random effects, with a funnel plot and Egger's test for publication bias.
Each diagram is a layer in the same workspace, so a figure can combine a diagram with anything else.
Exporting
In Studio, every figure exports four ways:
- SVG: vector, infinitely scalable, the right choice for a manuscript or a poster. It stays sharp at any size and most journals accept it.
- PDF: vector too, for the journals and printers that ask for PDF figures.
- PNG: a raster image, at 2× for screens and slides, or at 300 or 600 dpi for print with the resolution written into the file.
- TIFF: the raster format many journals ask for, at 300 or 600 dpi.
You can also download any sheet as a CSV.
Exports carry a small "Made with Folio" credit under the figure on the Scholar and Fellow plans. On Chair it is off by default, and a switch in the export menu turns it on.
Into your paper
Add to paper puts the figure into a Folio draft, a recent one or a new one, with its caption. To change it later, bring it back to Studio from the document.
Free diagram makers, no account needed
The PRISMA, CONSORT and forest plot makers also have free standalone pages that work without signing in: PRISMA flow diagram, CONSORT diagram and forest plot and meta-analysis. They export SVG and PNG. Continue in Studio carries your work into the full workspace when you want layers, your account and the other export formats.
Tips
- Export SVG or PDF for anything going into a manuscript. You can always rasterize later; you can't un-rasterize.
- Fill counts as you screen, not at the end. A PRISMA diagram built alongside your screening is accurate; one reconstructed from memory usually isn't.
- Match the figure to the claim. A funnel plot only means something with enough studies to see a shape. Don't force one onto three papers.