Poster Printing at Allegheny College Printing Services

Printing Services has acquired a large-format printer suitable for printing posters to be used for academic presentations by faculty and students. Information is provided below regarding creating a poster, printing costs, and methods for submitting your file to Printing Services.

• Creating your Poster
• Printing Costs
• Submitting your Poster File to the Printing Services

Creating Your Poster

PowerPoint

We recommend that faculty and students create posters using Microsoft PowerPoint 2000, which is available on all faculty machines and also on all public computer labs.

We have provided some PowerPoint files which can be used as a starting point for your poster. Right-click on the links below and choose Save target as.. to download these files. These templates all have roughly the same look, but differ in poster size, number of text columns already in place, and campus image (images can be copied from one template and pasted into another).

Note: For faster service, the Print Shop recommends that one side of your poster be exactly 36" with the other side 56" or less (56" is a limit imposed by PowerPoint).

Poster Type	One Column 36" x 44"	Two Columns 36" x 44"	Three Columns 36" x 46"	Four Columns 36" x 56"
	download	download	download	download
	download	download	download	download

To use one of these templates, simply open the file in PowerPoint and replace the placeholder content with your own content.

When working with these files in PowerPoint, be very careful to leave at least a one inch border along all edges of your poster to ensure that all of your content prints. These template files contain guides, placed one inch from each edge, which you can use as margin guidelines. Click View > Guides and/or View > Rulers to turn on guides and/or rulers, if necessary.

More information about creating posters using PowerPoint, including how to create a poster from a blank presentation, is available in this tutorial.

Before submitting your file to Printing Servicesfor printing, please do the following:

• Spell-check the poster by clicking Tools > Spelling, and then carefully proofread the poster to catch errors the spell checker missed.
• View the poster at 100% and examine it closely to be sure that all text and graphics is placed where it should be, with no unwanted overlapping. If graphics do not look good when viewed at 100% they will not look good printed. Try resizing the graphic or image to a smaller size to improve print quality. Also check the borders to confirm that no content is within one inch of any edge.
• Examine the overall layout of the poster by clicking View > Zoom.. and then selecting Fit.
• Print an 8-1/2" x 11" copy of your poster by selecting the Scale to Fit Paper box on the PowerPoint print dialog window and examine this printout for alignment problems or other errors. Save this page for submitting to Printing Services with your poster file.

Other File Types

Printing Services recommends that you use PowerPoint to create your poster, either from one of the templates provided or from a blank presentation. If you have already created the poster in another format, contact the Print Shop to see if that format can be accepted. The size and border guidelines mentioned above for PowerPoint files will still apply to any other format. Whenever possible, embed fonts in the file submitted to Printing Services.

Note that using a non-PowerPoint file may cause delays in printing your poster.

Printing Costs

Pricing listed below is for work or class related posters submitted by faculty, students or employees. Posters from off-campus constituents or for personal projects will be charged at a higher rate. All prices are for 36" wide paper.

Color posters (plain or matte paper): $5.00 per foot
Black and white posters, plain paper: $3.00 per foot
Black and white posters, matte paper: $5.00 per foot

Poster tubes are also available for purchase at Printing Services.

Submitting Your File to the Print Shop

Before submitting a poster file for printing, please check the poster carefully as described above. Whenever possible, embed fonts in the file.

To request that a poster be printed, you must submit the following items to Printing Services:

• Printing Services Order Form, available from Printing Services or online.
• A copy of your poster printed on 8-1/2" x 11" paper. On the back of this copy, print: your name, box number, email address, phone number, name of poster file and full size of poster, in inches.
• Your poster file. This can be submitted online, or can be brought to Printing Services on a CD, zip disk, or floppy disk. If using the online file submission form, be sure to also deliver the Printing Services Order Form and printed copy of your poster to Printing Services, either through the campus mail (Printing Services, Box L, Attn: Plotter) or in person (Printing Services is located in the Oddfellows building.)

Poster files and accompanying documents should be delivered to Printing Services at least one week in advance of the date the poster is needed.

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