Aliquot label template

A run is a list, not a number

Real runs are not twelve of one thing. They are two blanks, three of the reagent, three of the other reagent, and one spare. Software that only offers a copy count forces you to run the job three times and hand-number the results.

The editor takes the run as a list: each row is a thing and how many of it. Replicate numbering restarts inside each row, so a run comes out Blank 1, Blank 2, Tris-HCl 1, Tris-HCl 2 — which is how they get called out at the bench, rather than 1 through 8 with a separate note about which is which.

Numbering that stays readable

1. Pick the look from the examples, not from settingsPlain numbers, leading zeros, letters, or position in run (“1 of 4”). Each is shown using your own text before you choose.
2. Let the padding size itselfLeading zeros are sized to the largest number the run reaches: a run of 12 gives 01–12, a run of 120 gives 001–120. Every mark in a run is the same width, so nothing shifts halfway down a rack.
3. Give the number its own blockA number that lives in its own block can be moved, resized and coloured independently — usually larger than the name, because it is what you are actually looking for.

Text capacity on an aliquot label

What an aliquot label is for

An aliquot exists so the stock does not have to be opened again. Its label therefore has a narrower job than the stock's: it does not need to repeat the full identity, the supplier, or the hazard information, because those live on the parent container and in the record.

What it does need is the link back to that parent, and the position in the run. A label reading “BSA 10 mg/mL · 07” is complete if the batch record says which BSA stock run 07 came from. One reading “Bovine serum albumin, fraction V, 10 mg/mL in PBS, prepared 2026-08-24 by GS, aliquot 7 of 24” is not more complete — it is the same information in a size nobody can read.

Getting a run of aliquots right

Label before filling, not after

Labelling a tube that already has liquid in it means handling a full open tube. Label the empty rack, then fill.

Keep the run in rack order

If the labels come off the printer in the order the run was defined, they go onto the rack in that order too, and a mislabelled tube is immediately obvious as a gap in the sequence.

Number by replicate, not across the whole run

Two blanks and three of each condition read better as Blank 1–2 and Tris-HCl 1–3 than as 1 through 8, because that is how they get called out when the run is used.

Print one more than you need

A spare label costs nothing; re-running a job because one tube was dropped costs a trip back to the computer with gloves on.