Poster Printing on the Monmouth College Science Network

Printing posters on the large format printer is time consuming. Depending on the number of graphics, your poster might take as much as 20 minutes to plot.

Constructing Your Poster

• Make a single Powerpoint slide with text arranged as needed in text boxes in the usual way that you construct your slides
• Avoid overlaping objects--make sure that the text boxes and graphics boxes don't overlap. Overlaps seem to cause trouble when the we scale up the slide to poster size
• Use a white background whenever possible. This saves ink.

Getting ready to Print Your Poster

• See your instructor or Dr. Fasano for the username and password for the poster account on the iMacs in the Astronomy lab (CSB 180). The Astronomy lab Macs will open the .pptx files. It is probably safest to save your slide using "Save As" a .ppt or .pptx file.
• Save your poster to USB drive. You may also email it to yourself, but having a copy on a USB drive seems to work best and gives you a backup.
• Login to any of the iMacs in the Physics I lab or the Astronomy Lab. Please use the poster account.
• After you have logged in, insert your USB drive. USB ports are on the right side of the machine. Any USB port will work.
• Double click on the hard drive icon. It will likely be called "Macintosh HD" and it will probably be in the upper right hand corner.
• You should see your USB drive appear. Drag your PPT onto the desktop. In this way, if you need to make changes, you will not be making changes on the original.
• Double click on the PPT slide on the desktop. Powerpoint will start and you will see your slide. .

Printing Your Poster

• Choose Page Setup in Powerpoint (while viewing your slide).
• In Page Setup (Poster size is either 56" x 42" or 48" x 36")
  • Set width =56 in. or 48 in.
  • Set height=42 in. or 36 in.
  • Choose Options
    • Format for Poster_Printer (or similar label like HP Designjet, or Poster Printer)
    • Paper Size: Some computers may already have a paper size defines--something like Poster-Printer. If not, while in Page Setup, go to Options>Paper Size>Manage Custom Sizes and hit the "+" sign to define a new size. Set the WIDTH = 42 in. and the HEIGHT = 56 in. (I know, this seems backward.) Hit OK.
    • Choose OK/Save to leave the Options window
  • Choose OK/Save to leave the Page Setup Window. You may be prompted to "FIX" the poster. If this happens, choose FIX
• From the File Menu, choose Print. Make sure that the printer and paper size are correct. You may need to select what you set up.
• It will take some time to print your poster. This is entirely normal.
• When your poster is complete, the printer will cut the paper automatically. DO NOT PULL ON THE PAPER OR TRY TO TEAR IT YOURSELF.

Hints

• Sometimes if you have a background (or design), Powerpoint does not scale the poster up correctly. If setting the slide to poster size disrupts your poster, try setting a blank background before setting the page size.
• Sometimes tables can cause problems. Get help if your poster has problems when you resize and you have a blank background and a table.
• The Poster Printer now lives in CSB 307.

Last updated by Christopher Fasano at 12:40 on August 20, 2013..