Templates

PCR tube label template

A 0.2 mL PCR tube has almost no labelling surface, sits in a heated lid, and gets handled in strips. Often the right answer is to label the strip, not the tube.

Open this template in the editor19.05 × 6.35 mm

19.05 × 6.35 mm (0.75 × 0.25 in). The inner outline is the 1 mm safe area. Wraps a 1.5 mL microtube, a cryovial, a 50 mL conical tube or a reagent bottle.

What actually fits

A 0.2 mL tube is about 6 mm across at the top and tapers immediately. The realistic label is around 19 × 6 mm on the upper wall, which at 4.5 pt holds a dozen or so characters on one line. That is an identifier and nothing else.

Eight-strips change the arithmetic: one label along the side of a strip identifies all eight, and the position within the strip does the rest. For plates, label the plate skirt and let row and column identify the well — the plate map lives in the notebook, not on the plastic.

Capacity of a 19.05 × 6.35 mm PCR label

Type size	Lines	Plex Sans	Barlow Condensed	Atkinson Hyperlegible	Plex Mono	Space Mono	Courier Prime
4.5 pt	2	22	30	22	17	17	17
5 pt	2	20	27	20	16	15	16
6 pt	1	16	23	16	13	13	13
7 pt	1	14	19	14	11	11	11
8 pt	1	12	17	12	10	9	10
10 pt	1	10	13	10	8	7	8

One line, and not many characters in it. This is the smallest template on the site for a reason. Figures are characters per line, for 19.05 × 6.35 mm. Measured against the string “Tris-HCl 1 M pH 8.0 25 mg/mL 2026-08-24 GS lot B-204 store 4 C”, which is representative of laboratory text rather than of prose.

Plates are the usual answer at scale

Beyond a strip or two, individual tube labelling stops making sense. A 96-well plate carries one label on its skirt and identifies every well by row and column, which is both less work and less error than 96 small labels.

The trade is that a plate ties the samples together: you cannot pull one out and store it separately without breaking the map. Where samples need to travel independently, strips are the compromise — eight tubes that stay together, one label, and the option of snapping off what you need.

Alternatives worth considering first

Colour-coded caps: Faster to read in a block than any text, and unaffected by the heated lid.
Strip-level labels: One 19 × 6 mm label per eight tubes, with position doing the individual identification.
Plate skirt labels: For 96-well plates, the skirt takes a full-size label and the well map handles the rest.
Marker on the tube wall: Genuinely fine for a same-day experiment. A label is for something that has to survive being put down.

Common questions

Can I label the cap of a PCR tube?: No. The cap contacts a heated lid at around 105 °C, and a label there both degrades and interferes with the thermal contact that prevents cap condensation.
What size label fits a 0.2 mL PCR tube?: About 19 × 6 mm on the upper wall, which holds roughly a dozen characters at 4.5 pt. For anything more, label the strip or the plate.

Open it in the editor

The editor loads at 19.05 × 6.35 mm with a worked example in place. It runs entirely in your browser: nothing you type is uploaded, and there is no account to make.

Open the pcr tube / strip template

Last reviewed 2026-08-24.