How do I prepare a poster file to be printed?

1. Make sure your printing is scheduled to happen at least two working days before your poster is needed.  We have contacts with the main campus in the College of Science as a backup, just in case a backup is needed.
   
2. Concerning size, we usually have of photo paper on rolls of 36” and 42”44”.   That does not mean that your poster can’t be bigger than that, but it means that either you width or length can’t be larger than that one of these dimensions.
3. In order to prevent scaling of your image, we recommend making your file size smaller than the otherphysical dimensiondimensions can.of Asthe anpaper by a 0.25 inches on each side.  For example, if the conferencepaper saysdimensions are 36" x 24" we recommend making your poster can35.5" beby 45”X45” we can only print you poster 45”X42”. I would suggest that the 45” be your width (you will not miss the 3” at the bottom)23.5".
4. You can use any program to create your poster but you should convert it to a PDF when you are finished.  This will preserve and specific fonts that are used in the file.
5. If you are working on a PC then DosPDF works best if on a MAC then use Acrobat Distiller to create an Acrobat PDF file. Some applications have a save as command for PDF. Check that file very carefully make sure it is really the # of inches you want and it looks good in Acrobat at 200%.
6. Please contact the IT team by emailing them at mlml-it-group@sjsu.edu if you need help with any graphics program. For this, a heads up a couple of weeks out is a good idea.

For additional poster information beyond the printing process, see the following links.

Creating Effective Poster Presentations

The Parts Of A Scientific Poster

How to Create a Research Poster: Poster Basics