"The Far Side" is primarily told through the use of a single, vertical, rectangular panel, occasionally split into small sections of four, six, or eight for storytelling purposes. A caption or dialogue usually appears under the panel as typed text, although speech balloons are sometimes used for conversations. Certain strips, mostly those published on Sundays, are double-sized, colored, and have handwritten captions. When Larson drew panels they were 6×7.5 inches; he penciled until the image "closely approximate" his vision, and then he would ink it. The caption was handwritten in pencil underneath the cartoon. When Universal received a cartoon, it would set the caption to the usual typeface and add copyright and publication dates.