Basic Non-text Elements — This Suite contains several elements that can describe and point to non-textual content: <graphic>, <inline-graphic>, <media>, and <inline-media>. These elements appear in the flow of the document, and the material they describe and point to is assumed to be integral to the document, unless flagged with the @supplemental attribute. “Integral” means that the object is logically necessary to the content of the document, although stored as an external file.

The elements <graphic> and <inline-graphic> contain a pointer to a still image (such as a photograph, diagram, line drawing, etc.). The elements <media> and <inline-media> contain a pointer to a non-textual object (typically a binary such as an audio clip, dataset, or animation that cannot be displayed in print)

Supplementary Material — In contrast to the four non-textual elements, <supplementary-material> and <inline-supplementary-material> always describe and point to objects that are considered to be “supplementary” (non-integral) to the content of the article. Such material may be XML material (tagged textual material such as figures, tables, and sections) or non-textual material (such as graphics, films, audio clips, datasets, or other resources). Best practice is to use <supplementary-material> descriptions only for describing objects that are too large or otherwise of a format that does not fit into an XML file. Objects that could properly be incorporated into an XML file (such as text fragments, tables, figures, and intext graphics) should be tagged using the ordinary JATS elements (such as <fig>, <table>, or <sec>) and flagged as supplementary using the @supplemental attribute.

The elements <supplementary-material> and <inline-supplementary-material> (like the <graphic>, <inline-graphic>, <inline-media>, and <media> elements) never contain the object they describe, even if it is an XML object such as a figure. They provide metadata concerning the external object, and may point to it.

The element <inline-supplementary-material> is used to mark up references to additional material, where the reference appears within the line of the text and does not have a preview image or separate caption. The <supplementary-material> element is used to describe a more complicated reference, where the description of the supplementary object resembles a figure in that it can be positioned as a floating or anchored object, may take a caption, and may use graphics or tables in the description of the object.