The Departments of Geology and Biology maintains an HP DesignJet 800PS large scale poster plotter that is available for academic-related use. It is capable of up to 42" wide paper at up to 100 feet in length. It is always loaded with 36" Bright White roll paper, so plan your posters for this size or you will have to provide your own paper. Special arrangements can be made to use more expensive High Gloss paper for special projects. Below are links to templates, useful CMU images, tips for designing posters, and answers to questions about how to format and print your posters.
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
QUESTION: Who do I contact for help? You should contact me, Robert Devantier (220 Brooks Hall, 774-2293, robert.h.devantier@cmich.edu), with any questions or problems. I will not create your poster for you, but I will assist in making sure that it prints correctly.
QUESTION: How
should I format my poster?
The preferred application for creating posters is Microsoft PowerPoint.
PowerPoint has a page size limit of 56". So, the largest poster you will be able
to print on our plotter using the supplied paper in PowerPoint will be 36" x
56". To create a 36"x56" document in PowerPoint, open a blank PowerPoint file
and go to File, Page Setup and set the width to 56" and the Height to 36" and
Orientation for Slides to Landscape.
If you need to create a poster that is larger than 56" wide, it is recommended that you use a different application called Adobe Illustrator. Adobe Illustrator is capable of using a page size up to 225", or 18.75 feet. Support will not be offered to those who use any other applications (such as Microsoft Publisher) since printing tests have not been successful.
Templates have been created with the common sizes of posters. These are a good place to start.
QUESTION: What margins should I be using? The plotter does best if you keep a 1" margin on all four sides of your poster. This means no graphics or text boxes should be in that margin area. A handy thing to do is to create a box object that can be used as your "margin". Once your poster is ready to print, just delete the box. The templates have this box created for you. Your poster may fail to print correctly if you do not maintain the margin.
QUESTION: Where do I print my poster? The plotter is located in the Geology computer lab, 315 Brooks Hall. The computer lab is available only during normal department hours (usually 8am to 5pm, Monday thru Friday) by going to the department office at 314 Brooks Hall. The printer name is "gel_p04" for Windows and Mac users. Instructional sheets are currently available for PC PowerPoint, PC Illustrator CS2 users. It is recommended that first-time users seek assistance before attempting to print. A single poster will take anywhere from 20 minutes to an hour to print. Please plan enough time (HINT: don't wait until the last minute).
QUESTION: Where can I get University Seals or CMU Logos? CMU Wordmarks are available to insert into your poster document from the CMU MediaBank. Please make sure you follow the usage guidelines. The TIF graphics that are available will work the best in PowerPoint. Using an image from anywhere else will result in poor print quality, especially if the image is enlarged in size. This is due to most graphics being sized for optimal web viewing speed, and do not contain enough resolution to support enlargement without pixelation.
QUESTION: How am I suppose to edit my poster? When I view the whole poster on the monitor everything is too small. Both PowerPoint and Illustrator have Zoom In/Out capabilities. You can zoom in on the area that you are editing so that you can see what you are typing. Change to zoom to "Fit" when you want to see the entire poster on the screen.
QUESTION: How am I suppose to edit my poster? While you can copy and paste text from other applications (like Microsoft Word) it is better to just type the text right into a text box. If you must copy and paste from Word into PowerPoint, do so into a text box rather than just pasting. Pasting text objects in brings all of its style properties (such as font size, type, color, etc) and sometimes causes irregular style effects on the text when printed. A smart decision is to just manually type in all your text directly into Illustrator or PowerPoint.
QUESTION: What should I bring to print my poster? Bring your poster on a USB Memory Key or have it burned onto a CD, most posters do not fit on floppy disk. You should also bring a poster tube to put your poster into. Alternative options would be two or three 3" x 1/8" rubber bands or paper clips. The paper will crinkle and show crease lines, so do not plan on just folding it into your backpack.
QUESTION: What if the poster does not look right while it is printing? On the front right side of the plotter is a control panel. On that panel is a button marked "Cancel". Press this ONCE to cancel your print and then seek assistance in correcting the problem.
QUESTION: How much does it cost to print a poster? Right now there is no charge system in place. Just know that other universities charge $4 or more per linear foot to print ($20 for a 56" poster). They also charge for any rough drafts and mistakes. I have heard that getting one done at places like Kinko's can be $85-$150. Please be responsible and try not to waste resources.