Flow, Main Figure, or Center Tab: Which Template Layout Fits Your Research

The three templates

Graphab provides three layout templates — Flow, Main Figure, and Center Tab — each designed for a different type of scientific narrative. All three come with pre-configured image zones and text zones. You fill them with AI assistance. The question is which one matches your paper's structure.

Flow template

The Flow layout arranges zones in a directional sequence — left to right or top to bottom. It is built for process narratives: signaling cascades, metabolic pathways, experimental protocols, drug mechanism-of-action diagrams.

If your paper answers "what happens first, then next, then after that," the Flow template fits. Each step in the process gets an image zone, and adjacent text zones hold labels or brief annotations.

Example use cases:

• A kinase cascade where each phosphorylation step needs its own panel
• A drug delivery timeline: nanoparticle uptake → endosomal escape → payload release → target engagement
• An experimental design with sequential stages

The AI Draft button in each text zone generates step labels in a consistent style, so the flow reads as a unified sequence rather than disconnected captions.

Main Figure template

The Main Figure layout places a large central image zone surrounded by supporting zones. It is built for hierarchical narratives: a key finding or model presented first, with evidence and context arranged around it.

If your paper has one central result that everything else supports — a structure, a model, a core experimental observation — the Main Figure template frames it naturally. The central zone holds the primary visual (crystal structure, proposed model, key micrograph). Surrounding zones hold supporting data: validation experiments, controls, quantification panels.

Example use cases:

• A cryo-EM structure as the centerpiece, surrounded by functional assays and mutational analysis
• A proposed mechanism in the center, with experimental evidence in peripheral panels
• A core phenotype flanked by genetic and pharmacological validation

Each image zone still has the "AI Generate Image" option — describe what supporting panel you need, and Graphab generates it.

Center Tab template

The Center Tab layout organizes content into tab-like sections radiating from a central element. It is built for categorization narratives: comparisons, classifications, multi-condition experiments.

If your paper compares multiple conditions, groups, or treatments, the Center Tab template gives each category a distinct visual space. The shared center holds common context — a pathway, a cell type, a model system — and tabs branch out for each condition.

Example use cases:

• WT vs. three mutant variants compared across a shared readout
• Drug screen results organized by mechanism class
• Multi-tissue expression analysis with a shared gene model in the center

How to decide

Ask one question about your paper: what is the shape of your main story?

If it is a sequence → Flow. If it is a hierarchy → Main Figure. If it is a comparison → Center Tab.

You can switch templates after trying one. Graphab preserves the content you have already added to zones when you change layouts, so experimentation costs nothing.

Filling the zones

Regardless of which template you pick, every zone works the same way. Image zones accept uploads, sketch-to-structure conversion, or AI generation from a text description. Text zones accept AI Draft suggestions — three options per click, pick the one that fits.

The template gives you the structure. The AI fills the content. You make the editorial calls.