Digital Posters - Using Power Point

PowerPoint is a popular presentation tool that is widely used to create 35mm film and electronic slide shows. Although inadequate as a graphics-creation or page layout program, it is often pressed into such service. While Adobe InDesign is a more reliable tool and will produce superior results, PowerPoint can be used with Grendel or Ghidorah, Media Services' large format DesignJet printers, to assemble posters from pre-existing text and image files. The cost, listed on our ratesheet, is payable by personal check or by authorized charge to a valid NYUMC account. 

Although the design and electronic construction of a poster is performed entirely by the end-user, the actual printing is done at Media Services under staff supervision. It is therefore necessary to schedule time in advance for this purpose.

Bitmap (e.g. photographs, video frames, etc.) images must be added into PowerPoint as TIF files using the insert, picture, from file command. All Canvas, Powerpoint, Illustrator, Cricket Graph, Delta Graph, Freehand and PICT files must be converted to PDF format or saved as pdf files using the print command on Macintosh computers running OS X before being inserted.

PowerPoint Precautions

PowerPoint has many peculiarities. Because of the time constraints and expense involved in creating posters, the following precautions should be observed: 

• DO NOT use textured, gradient or very dark backgrounds as you would use in a slide. Using textured, gradient or very dark backgrounds in powerpoint triples the printing time of the poster and often gives undesirable results. Media Services reserves the right to change the texture or gradient background to a solid color.
• If your poster is to be larger than 56 inches in either dimension you will need to make the page setup half the required output size: actual poster=36 inches tall by 60 inches wide, then page setup in PPT=18 inches by 30 inches.
• Avoid complex layerings of bitmaps, such as transparency effects. If you need to superimpose TIF images on gradient backgrounds or on other images, do so in a program such as Photoshop and insert the resulting composite. 
• DO NOT use exotic typefaces. Use only standard fonts such as Helvetica, Times, and Symbol. 
• Avoid exotic font styles such as Underline, Outline and Shadow and Embed the TrueType when you save the PowerPoint Presentation.
• Remember not to link images, objects or files to a PowerPoint presentation, but to embed them, instead. 
• Exercise caution when importing images into PowerPoint. Imported TIFF files must be in uncompressed, RGB format. Some images can be damaged if PowerPoint converts them to its native picture format. 
• To make complex composite figures, or figures which will be used again in manuscripts, photographs or posters, use a layout program such as InDesign, or a drawing program such as Freehand instead of PowerPoint. 
• Print out and examine a proof copy BEFORE scheduling a slot to print your poster. 
• NOTE WELL that PowerPoint proof prints are NOT absolutely predictive of final results. If you require greater certainty and reliability, use InDesign to make your poster. 

Because a full tutorial and many templates and examples are included with the PowerPoint software, this page serves only to explain the procedure for formatting PowerPoint files for printing at Media Services.