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PowerPoint for Posters workshop

Agenda

In this workshop, we will cover how to make Posters from a PowerPoint slide including slide formatting, adding and editing images to slide, text and font guidelines, as well as saving and submitting your poster to be printed.

We will be using PowerPoint 2016 (Mac).

Set Poster Dimensions

  1. Open a new PowerPoint file, choose Blank Presentation
  2. Choose a Blank Slide (delete text boxes if necessary)
  3. Go Design> Slide Size> Page Setup –or– Go File> Page Setup
  4. Under Slide sized for > select Custom
  5. Edit the size by changing the width and height
    • Important: The roll of paper for the poster printer is 36 inches wide. This means that either the width or height of your poster can be no more than 36 inches with a margin. As long as either the width or height is 36 inches, the other dimension can be longer.)
    • Standard size is 48 in. x 36 in. (but check departmental standards to see if your department wants something different)
  6. View > Ruler & Guides > Show (this step is optional, but assists in aligning images and text)

Insert Content

  1. Inserting Images (including image file size/quality, cropping)
  2. Inserting text box and font sizes
  3. Inserting tables

Recommended Font Sizes:

    • Title: 98 Point
    • Heading: 48 Point
    • Body: 24 Point

General Tips

  • Do not use dark colored backgrounds, it may increase cost of printing
  • Avoid using too many images or text; do not overcrowd the image
  • Think of the colors you are using and how it will appear to the reader (Don’t want the text color and background color to clash)
  • Make sure you are using high quality images. Low quality images will appear blurry or pixelated.

Export as PDF

  1. Go File> Export
  2. Under File Format, select PDF
  • Do not use File > Print > Save as PDF (this may default to 8.5 x 11″ size)

To confirm the PDF page size

  1. open your pdf file in Adobe Acrobat Reader
  2. press Ctrl+D or File > Properties (Document Properties)
  3. In the Description tab under the Advanced section, you will find ‘Page size’. You should see 48.00 x 36.00 inches

Submit the PDF to be Printed

Resources

Academic Poster Planning Worksheet

PowerPoint for Posters tutorial including screenshots on College wiki

College logos and poster templates

Poster printing schedule and costs

Poster Printing Form

Creating a Research Poster video tutorial. Log in to Hoonuit online training with your college credentials first.

University of Alabama Tutorial and Advice