How to make a poster:

1. General

• Use PowerPoint (ppt) to create your posters, best on a PC, because the PPT versions for PCs and Macs are not entirely compatible.
• We developed a template for posters (LastnameF_poster.ppt) that you may use as a starting point for your poster and that should print easily  on the BC Env. Sci. Department's HP poster printer. After downloading the file, save it as PPT file with the following filename using your lastname and the first letter of your first name , e.g. StuteM_poster.ppt.
• The size of the poster should be 42" wide x 42" tall.
• Include less text, more graphs, charts and images
• Use color sparingly, because cartridges are expensive (no background color or image, for example)
• Sign up for a 20 min poster printing session  (in class, or at Catherine Cook's office, 404 Altschul)
• For your printing session, bring a floppy disk, a USB drive, a CD, or a 100MB Zip disk when you come to your printing session. You can also put the file on the courseworks website and download the file from there when you want to print.
  
• You may keep your poster after the poster session is completed. Please print only one copy on our printer, each poster costs about $10 for paper and cartridges plus our time to help you in the process.
• The most important thing to keep in mind is to KEEP YOUR POSTER FILE SIZE SMALL.  We really cannot emphasize this enough.  Your poster file size should be between 1-5 MB.  If you go over 10MB, you will increase your chances of running into jams, clogs and errors printing.   Image size is what will make a poster file too large to print. Too large files often are related to  images that were imported at much too high resolution. Also, go to the Tools menu, select Options and unclick Allow fast saves in the Save tab. This will reduce filesize because only the last version of your poster will be saved.
• Feel free to print your poster elsewhere, but you'll be on your own.

2. Text

• The structure follows a structure very similar to that of your thesis, it has an abstract, introduction, methods, results and discussion, recommendations, and reference section.
• Do not overwhelm the reader with text. The main points should come through clearly, but nobody will spend 30min  in front of your poster reading small type text.
• Include only a few key references (<5).
  
• To include text in your poster, type in the provided text boxes or insert a text box in your poster using the Insert: Text Box option (or icon).
• You can type in the text box directly or copy the text from a Word document and paste it into the text box you created.
• Leave one inch on either edge of the poster.

Fonts

• Recommended font: Arial (or Geneva) because it is a sans-serif font (no curly or thin bits to the letters) and is easiest to read
• Font sizes:
• title:  54 point bold
• Student researcher with affiliation:  48 point
• Reserach mentor(s):  48 point
• Seminar adviser:  48 point
• Section headings:  color of your choice, 28 point
• Text:  black, 24 point
• Figure and table captions:  black, 20 point
• References:  black, 20 point

2. Images, graphs and tables

• In comparison with your thesis, the same or more space on the poster should be taken up by images or graphs than by text, a good rule of thumb is 50/50.
• Include captions.

Images

• Your images should have a resolution of 200dpi (dots per inch) at the size they will be ultimately printed on your poster.
• Save them as either JPEG (or JPG), GIF, or TIF files.
• In PPT go to the Insert, then Picture, then From file menu and find your image. Of course you can change the size by dragging on the corners once the image is placed on the PPT slide. By using the handles on the corners of the image, the software will make sure that the increase or decrease in size is proportional.  You can also use the Format a Picture option in PowerPoint to change the size and position of your image.

Graphs

• When importing graphs from Excel or other software, copy the graph then go to the Edit menu, Paste special, as Picture (Enhanced Metafile) (If you do a basic paste, you entire Excel workbook will be saved in the ppt file unncessessarily increasing its size.).

Tables

• If you do use a table on your poster, it should be very compact. Use a table only if it would support your story more efficiently than a graph.

3. Printing

Printing on regular letter paper

• You should print your poster on regular letter paper to proof read it.
• Go to the Print option in your File menu. In the pop-up window, select the Scale to fit paper box, and set the paper size to letter (8.5x11in.) and landscape mode.
• DO NOT CHANGE ANY OF THE OTHER SETTINGS!
• If you have good eyes, the font sizes are right if you can still read the text.

Printing on the poster printer

1. Turn on printer (it is likely to be on already)
2. Start PPT and load your file
3. Make sure it looks the same on the screen as on your computer
4. Go to the File, Page setup menu, and make sure that Width, Height, and Number of pages are set to 42 inches, 42 inches, and 1, respectively. The orientation should be Landscape mode.
5. Hit the ok button and you are ready to go.
6. Go to the File, Print menu and pick HP Designjet 500PS 42 by HP as printer.
7. In the Print window click on Properties
8. In the lower right corner under Quick sets select Senior_Poster
9. It might take ~10 minutes or so for your poster to print.