We have a standard template for making posters. Use of this template is *not* mandatory, but it should make your life easier.
The Poster board is 30x40 in. So, that is the size of the poster template.
Using power point, make a standard presentation (8.5 x 11 in. paper, landscape mode, etc.) just as you would for normal presentations. You can have 9 slides. One of these slides should be an abstract. But, you do *not* need a slide that says the title of the poster, or your name (that is included in the poster template). Try to use Arial font, or some other sans-serif font because these look better on posters. You can fill up the whole slide, don't worry about leaving margins. It's good to have a title for each slide just as you would a normal presentation.
1) In PowerPoint, open up the poster template, and open up your presentation. Arrange the two sub-windows side by side within the power-point window (i.e. so that both are visible).
2) In the poster template, select: View -> Normal.
In your
presentation, select: View -> Slide Sorter.
3) In the poster template, fill in your poster title, your name and your
advisor's name. (I've included two example slides so that you can see how they
look. Obviously, you need to delete these before you start.)
Click File
-> Page setup.
You should have:
Slides sized for:
Custom
Width: 40 in.
Height 30 in.
slides:
landscape
In this step, you copy each of your 9 slides to the poster template.
1) In the slide sorter, click on the first slide of your presentation. Hit Cntl-c to copy the slide. In the poster template window, hit Cntl-v to copy the slide. The slide will appear small and in the middle of the poster. Move it into one of the 9 slide positions on the poster, and resize it so that it fits in the black rectangle. (The black rectangle and the slide have slightly different aspect ratios. Make sure to maintain the original aspect ratio of the slide when you resize. You will have more margin on the left and right sides than on top and bottom when you place the slide in the black rectangle. Simply center your slide within the black box.)
2) Repeat above step for each of the 9 slides in your presentation.
If you have complicated graphics like bitmaps, screen dumps, etc. in any of your slides, see "a note about graphics", below.
1) Printing: (If you don't already have the plotter as one of your printers,
you need to add the BWRCVAULT\Plotter as one of your printers. If you need help
doing this, ask me.)
In your poster template within power
point,
select: File -> Print
Select BWRCVAULT\Plotter as
your printer.
Click on Properties. In the Paper Size
tab:
select Orientation: Landscape
select page size: ANSIE -
34 x 44 in.
select Paper source: 36 inch roll
Select: No
scaling
In the Options tab: Select Quality: Normal (final) or Best (enhanced)
Click 'ok' for the properties dialog box click 'ok' in the Print box to start printing.
Problems Printing
If the printer takes longer than 30 minutes to *start* printing (from the time you hit 'ok' in the printing directions above) it may be running low on memory. You should cancel the job, and select to process the job in the computer rather than in the printer:
select: file -> print
Click on Properties
in the Advanced
tab:
select Process document .. ..in computer
Click 'ok' for the properties dialog box click 'ok' in the Print box to start printing.
That should do it. Contact the group leader if you have any problems with the template or the directions.
Graphics don't always look nice when included using the method described above. You might notice that when printed from your power point presentation they look fine, but when included in the poster, they look bad. Simple things, like graphics drawn directly in Power Point come out fine, but screen dumps and bitmaps don't always come out well.
Here is the fix: (The idea here is to insert the graphic directly onto the poster, rather than bundling it inside the slide object.) Copy the slide into your poster according to the directions above. In the poster window, double click on the slide object. This opens the slide up for editing. Select the offending graphic. Hit Cntl-x. (This will remove it from the slide). Click the mouse outside the slide (which brings you out of editing mode on the slide). Hit Cntl-v. This inserts the graphic directly onto the poster rather than being included inside the slide object. Move the graphic to the correct position on top of the slide object, and resize it as you like. (Note: this fix is non-ideal, but it works well enough. If anyone finds a better way, let me know.)
Last Update: 11/30/01 11:11:14 AM
Thanks
to Josie Ammer for the template and directions.