Creating Posters with PowerPoint (XP and earlier versions)

Planning and Designing Your Poster

How much information is too much information? Do I have too many images on my poster? Too much text? Is the content logically organized? Take a look at these helpful sites for some pointers when planning and designing your poster.

Erren TC, Bourne PE (2007) Ten Simple Rules for a Good Poster Presentation. PLoS Comput Biol 3(5): e102. doi:10.1371/journal.pcbi.0030102

Creating Effective Poster Presentations: An Effective Poster--from North Carolina State University

Scientific Poster Tutorial--from Makesigns.com 

Creating Medical Poster Presentations--from Microsoft

Getting Started

The following guide is for Microsoft Office XP. While most of the functions will work in earlier and later versions of Microsoft Office, some may not. There is also a guide for creating posters with PowerPoint 2007 and 2010.

Let's get started.

1. Open a blank presentation in PowerPoint
2. Make the Slide Layout format Blank
3. Go to the File menu, select Page Setup
4. Under Slides sized for: select Custom
5. Set the width and height to the size you want. You may have to set the size in proportion to the final size you want. For example, if you want a poster to be 3’x 6’, set the width to 36” and the height to 18”. When the poster is printed, you will then print it at 200%.
6. Keep orientation of slide at Landscape.

Note: Be aware of the meeting requirements for the size of your poster. Conference planners often specify how big a poster should be or how much space they can allocate to you. It's easiest if you establish your desired poster size prior to adding text and graphics. It can be changed later, but it will most likely require you to readjust all your poster content.

Color Schemes and Backgrounds

Go to the Format menu, select Background Click on the white dropdown menu, select More Colors . . . Choose the color you want; usually a light color works best To create a gradient or patterned background, select Fill Effects . . .

Grid, Guides, and Ruler

You can display a grid, guides, and ruler to help with the placement of your poster elements.

1. Go to the View menu, select Grid and Guides
2. Check the following boxes:
   • Display grid on screen
   • Display drawing guides on screen
3. You should now see a grid and a set of moveable guides on your slide
4. Go to the View menu, select Ruler
5. You should now see a ruler on your screen

Inserting Text

• Use text boxes to organize your wording, either from the Insert menu or the textbox icon on the Draw menu
• You may want to separate your headings/titles from the bulleted text; this makes formatting the text a little easier. The main thing is to determine the best size for your headings/titles and the bulleted text, and to be consistent with your text boxes
• Highlight the textbox border and use the arrow keys to move your textbox around. Use CTRL + arrow key to move a textbox just a smidgeon

Note: Text size can vary depending on the size and content of your poster. A good rule of thumb is to make the title of the poster 50-56 point size, headers 32-36 point size, and the bulleted text 20-26. There are no hard and fast rules; just keep in mind the proportion of the elements in relation to each other.

Inserting Pictures

• Go to the Insert menu, select Picture, From File . . .
• You can then move the picture any place you want it to be.

 

Note: You should ensure that your images are of sufficient quality to be printed. The resolution of your images should be at least 300 dpi (dots per inch). Most web images are 72 dpi and when printed, will look blurry or jagged. It is best to scan your own images and save them in .jpg format. See this web site for further guidelines on graphics: http://www.makesigns.com/tutorial/tutorial_graphics3.htm

The Northwestern University logo: Download the logo to insert in your poster at: http://www.northwestern.edu/univ-relations/publications/logo/logo.html

 

Inserting Charts and Tables

• You can copy a chart from another PowerPoint presentation or from Excel and paste it into your poster. Resize it as necessary to fit
• Once pasted, double-click on the chart to access chart-related functions such as Chart type, Chart area, etc. You may want to remove the background color or borders of the chart so that the chart integrates better with the background of your poster

Inserting Lines, Drawings, Shapes, etc.

• Use Autoshapes to draw arrows, create boxes and circles and other shapes
• Use WordArt to create different styles of text
• Add clip art, 3-D effects
• Be creative!

Grouping Elements

• You can move a number of elements together, e.g. a textbox and a picture, by grouping them. Temporary grouping: Use your mouse to create a box around the elements to be grouped. All elements should now be highlighted and can be moved as one
• Permanent grouping: This method creates a permanent group until you choose to ungroup the elements
  • Group your elements using the temporary grouping method outlined above
  • With all elements to be grouped highlighted, select Draw, Group from the toolbar at the bottom of the screen
  • All elements should now be surrounded by a new border of small white squares or circles
  • To move the grouped elements, position your cursor over the new border until the cursor changes to a cross with arrows; left-click and move the group by dragging it to another location on the slide
  • To ungroup the elements, select Draw, Ungroup

Printing Your Poster

Printing a Preview copy
Go to the File menu, select Print
Click on Scale to fit paper
Click on Frame Slides

Printing your Poster
You can print your poster any place you find a poster printer. Ask around other NU departments to see if you can use their poster printer on a cost-recovery basis, i.e. cost of paper and ink.
Possibilities for the Northwestern community include:

Duplicating Services at NU (Kinko's)
312/503-8995
Searle Building,RoomB-407
Movco
(312) 926-6334
2nd floor, Galter Pavilion, NMH

http://www.makesigns.com/
http://www.megaprint.com/
http://www.printnorthstar.com/