The campus maintains a wide format printer for student and faculty poster projects. Only academic projects necessary to satisfy a student's educational requirements or faculty pedagogy or research will be printed. The following guidelines or conditions must be followed when submitting poster projects for printing.
Recommended Desktop Publishing Application:
For the creation of materials to be sent to the wide format printer, the ITS Department recommends the use of a desktop publishing application such as Microsoft Publisher, Corel Draw, Adobe InDesign, or similar. Microsoft PowerPoint and Microsoft Word are acceptable substitutes; however, their usage can add some difficulty to the printing process. When printing, we must have access to the original file or a high-quality PDF conversion of the original, preferably both.
Graphics & Photos:
Always start your project with the highest quality images you have available. Choose photos or graphics with a high resolution and use the highest quality digital camera you have available. When a low quality image is made larger, it pixelates or becomes blocky in its appearance. The desktop publications mentioned above all include a zoom feature that allows you to enlarge the project and spot any problems prior to your project being printed. If pixelation is visible on your screen, the picture will be pixelated when printed.
Please be aware that pictures you obtain from the Internet may be copyrighted and illegal to use in your project if not licensed properly. You are responsible for ensuring any media used follows any applicable federal, state, and local laws.
Paper Size:
Aside from your content, paper size is one of the most critical components for a successful project. Never create a project in an 8½ x 11-inch workspace. Always set up your paper size (slide size if using Microsoft PowerPoint) first when beginning any project. ITS will not resize your poster project during printing, see our service limitations. Set your page size in your desktop publishing application to the same size as you want to be printed.
The paper used during printing is loaded on a roll, therefore one dimension of your poster project is limited by the width of the paper roll. Three widths of paper are available: 24", 36", and 44". One dimension of your poster must equal one of these dimensions, see our service limitations. You may set the other dimension to any size of your choosing. Please ask if you are unsure how to do this.
Fonts:
Exotic or uncommon fonts that you find on the Internet and install for your poster project may look nice but make printing more difficult, as when you submit your file for printing, we most likely will not have installed any uncommon fonts. Please either stick with the standard fonts or embed any fonts you've installed in the document itself. If you require additional assistance with embedding fonts or submitting your project as a PDF that retains the appearance of the fonts you selected, please ask.
Service Limitations:
ITS will not proof or spell-check your project. Please allow at least one week for your print to be completed. One dimension of your project must equal 24", 36", or 44" otherwise it will be rejected. ITS will not resize your project during printing under any circumstance. When submitting projects to be printed, please be sure they are in their final form.
A member of the ITS Department will print your poster on your behalf. We're here to help make your project a success. If you have questions or are ready to submit your project for printing, please create a helpdesk ticket by sending an e-mail with your poster attached to: [email protected].