Large format inkjet printers (36 inches wide by any length) have become much more common and are a good way to print a professional looking scientific poster. Such simple posters can be created using Microsoft PowerPoint, however PowerPoint has limitations. If you need to use advanced graphic drawing techniques, you may need to use a more powerful graphics program such as CorelDraw. Whatever you choose, make sure your printer can print from the program.

There are two parts to this lesson. The first will cover how to create a poster in PowerPoint and the second will be give you tips on the actual graphic creation of the poster...what looks good and what doesn’t.

We assume that by now you have become familiar with working in PowerPoint. If you are unsure of how to do something, please refer to the PowerPoint lessons.

The Page Setup dialog box will open. In the Slides sized for box, select Custom. Type in the height and width of your poster. For this class, your poster should be 24 inches by 36 inches.
NOTE: Be sure to check with whoever will be printing your poster to make sure they can accommodate the size you need. Some printers are 24 inches wide and some are 36. Every printer also has some room on all sides of the paper where it can’t actually print. These are called gripper margins and are different on all printers. Ask your printer how much space you need to leave on the edges to allow for this. We usually leave about 1 inch on each side.

Posters printed at UNL Print shop can be 36 inches wide by any length with 1/2 inch gripper margins.

Working with a large page size is going to be challenging. You will need to Zoom in and out frequently to layout and add detail to your poster. To view your poster at the actual size of 100%, change the percentage in the Zoom box. You will need to work really small when laying out the poster but when you are working on the details you will need to zoom into specific areas.

For zooming in and out quickly, hold the CTL key down while you scroll forward and backward with the wheel on your mouse (Intelli mouse on PC).

Save your poster frequently while creating it. The file will most likely be large. When finished you will need to FTP it to the location specified in the assignment.

If you create a poster that is too large and have to reduce the size, you will also need to reduce the resolution of the images if possible.

NOTE: Save your document frequently and make multiple backup copies in several different places!!!

Adding graphic images. Review the lesson about Image resolution and scanning (we will be coveing this in Week 7) to make sure your images are at the proper resolution needed for a good print. Insert images into your poster with the Insert - Picture - From File commands (refer to Lesson 9). You can use either TIFF or JPEG files for images. It is best to ask the print shop manager which file type works best.

The poster's text can either be typed directly into PowerPoint or it can be pasted from another program (highly recommended) into PowerPoint. Typing text directly into a poster is tedious. It is much easier to create the text in a wordprocessor and then copy and paste it into PowerPoint.

To copy and paste text into PowerPoint:

The poster titles should be readable from 15 feet away. It should be bold and bright and easy to read. Use the Drawing toolbar to create a text box for your title.

NOTE: Remember to make sure the fonts you use to create your poster are also on the computer of the print shop that will be printing your poster. If they do not have the same fonts, PowerPoint automatically substitutes a font without telling you and you could end up with a very strangely formatted poster. It is always best to ask first before you get a poster back that isn’t exactly what you had thought you would get. All print shops will have common fonts such as Arial and Times Roman installed. Ask before using other fonts.

Adding charts, graphs and tables. As with text, it is best to create your graphs and charts in another PowerPoint file or in another program and then insert it into your poster. To insert them into your poster, select Insert - Object - Create From File and find the file. PowerPoint will insert the object onto your poster. This works better as you are working with smaller files when you create your graphs in another PowerPoint program rather than in the file with the poster.

You also have a choice of clicking the Link box in the Insert dialog box. Checking the link box will link the two files together so if you make changes to the graph, it will automatically update in the poster file. You will need to keep these files in the same folder for this option to work.

Additional Tips

• You can import text from your word processor via copy and paste. You may have to change the formatting of the pasted text. It rarely survives the translation process unchanged.
• To facilitate locating files, create a single folder for all text, objects, and images you will use in your poster rather than maintaining them in several different folders.
  
• Scanned pictures:
  • Insert by choosing "insert picture" from the "insert" menu.
  • Any image manipulation needs to be done before importing.
  • Scan as a tiff file, CMYK rather than RGB if possible. This method will give you truer colors. You will not see the difference on your computer screen but it will improve the quality when you print the poster.

Other Resources

Effective Presentations from the Kansas University Medical Center, includes short online tutorials on creating an effective poster. It also has links to other poster-preparation sites.

Creating Posters for Humanities and Social Sciences gives a good explanation of why posters are often the best way to communicate results of research or experiential learning in social sciences and humanities. It includes a diagram of typical poster layout.

The University of Maryland's own Gemstone Program has put together a web page with instructions for their teams on how to prepare posters.

The University of Buffalo's Library has put together a site on Designing Effective Poster Presentations that concentrates on scientific posters but has good hints.

Professional association websites for poster presentations

• American Political Science Association .
• American Anthropological Association .

PowerPoint Lessons Table of Contents

Last updated September 2005. These courses are copyrighted by the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, Communications and Information Technology. Contact Lana Johnson at ljohnson1@unl.edu