Poster Preparation Recommendations


adapted from Dr. Don Stierman

for full instructions go to: 
 http://www.eeescience.utoledo.edu/faculty/stierman/Admin/dil/ppr.htm

Last updated 11/03/2008

Plan ahead!  Most students and faculty use PowerPoint to assemble a poster paper, Adobe Acrobat files have worked in the past.  Do not plan to print your poster the day before you hope to leave for your meeting.  You may find the ink supply has just run low, a new roll of paper is needed, or that several others have posters in the pipeline in front of you.  The person you ask to print the poster might not feel like dropping everything he/she is doing to help you out of your emergency predicament. 

Avoid solid backgrounds, please - one author used a beautiful solid blue background on glossy paper - it looked great but took all afternoon to print and drained an entire cartridge of blue ink.  $$ !!

Use an image editor to resize (reduce in size) any images with an excessively high resolution.  Grabbing a corner and reducing the size on screen is not enough.  Images require large quantities of memory and bandwidth, which translates into time when you spool and print your poster.  Posters printed from really large files bomb more frequently than posters printed from smaller files.  Use all of the images you need, but time spent adjusting their size is usually more than recovered during the printing process. 

1. Please begin by selecting File - Page Setup in PowerPoint and limit the the width (portrait) height (landscape) to 42 or 34 inches.  The printer is usually loaded with a roll of paper that is 44 or 36 inches wide, but, I have not figured out how to make the printer use the entire paper.  We have also had the ends cut off of the long dimension - apparently the entire length is also unavailable.

**Other paper sizes available for the HP plotter include: 36" x 60", 36" x 84", 36" x 96" and 36" x 108".  Some people might prefer a single large poster instead of a pair of smaller posters.  If you opt for a longer or higher poster, remember to subtract one inch from each edge when setting up your page in PowerPoint.

2. What you see is “pretty much” what you get.  Colors and patterns sometimes print differently from how things appear on the monitor.  You will learn which patterns work and which ones do not (a poster should not be the first graphic element you print, I am certain).  Title and author headlines should be large enough to read from 5 meters away.  Zoom to 100% to see (on-screen) what text, graphs and images are going to look like size-wise on the final printed poster.

3. Print a preliminary poster on faster, cheaper paper. On most printers (check the Scale to Fit box on the Effects dialog page - you get there by clicking Properties after selecting this printer) and then edit your poster as you see fit.

a. Printing a full-size poster can take hours.  The big printer allows the ink to dry (you do not want a smeared poster) and adjusts its printing speed based on paper type, temperature and humidity.

b. Glossy paper can be used but is too expensive for routine use in the large format printer.  Some faculty have their own supply of special paper.  Check with your advisor.

4. Copy your poster to a USB mass storage device or CD and bring it to someone with permission to print.