Large Posters

For printing large-format jobs, Print Services (Leighton 128) has a large-format printer that can print posters three feet wide and infinitely long.

Submitting jobs

When the final version looks perfect and you're sure there are no typos, mistyped references or upside-down figures, it's time to hand the .PPT file off to the printers. The good folks at Print Services, in the basement of Leighton, are the on-campus keepers of the large-format printer. There are several ways to send your poster to be printed.

Print Job Submission Form

Jobs can be submitted to Print Services online via a form (NetID required. There are four forms for different purposes–be sure to select the appropriate one). Fill it out as accurately as you can. Be sure to select 'Large format plotter' from the printer selector near the bottom of the form. Then you can choose your file on your local computer and upload it to Printing and Mailing Services. This form will allow you to upload files up to 15MB.

Here's an short introduction to large format poster making.

Click once within the movie window to pause.

Double-click within the movie window to start playing it again.

WebPub Upload

If your poster exceeds the file size limit for online submission, you will still be able to submit the job by uploading it to your Carleton web space. To do this, rename the file such that it includes only alphanumeric characters and put it in the WebPub folder in your Carleton Home drive. (A good example of a valid filename is "JonsPoster.pdf". A bad example is "Jon's Poster".)
Contact the folks at Print Services (x4186), give them the exact URL. This will be in the format:

http://people.carleton.edu/~YourUsername/YourPosterName.pdf

or

http://people.carleton.edu/~YourUsername/YourPosterName.ppt

In Person

If you're not feeling very tech-savvy, you may bring the file to Print Services on a flash drive or CD. Simply copy the file to the drive or burn it to a disc, walk to the Leighton basement, and present it to a kindly employee. Be sure to leave your name and what class the poster is for.

Cost

The cost is $3.00 per foot, printed on plain paper. Remember, the paper is 36" wide, so for $3.00 you get a poster that is 36" x 12", $9 gets you a 36" x 36" square, etc.

Of course, you can have your poster printed at Kinko's or Graphic Mailbox if you have access to a car. Be sure that you have all arrangements, such as cost and timing, worked out well in advance. For reference, the current commercial printing estimate for a 36" x 48" poster is around $90.

More Information

Thanks very much to Doug Foxgrover for most of the content on this page. If you want to read the full handout from Doug, click here

Small Posters

If you only need to use normal-sized paper, you can use the color printer at the ITS Helpdesk . This will print anything up to tabloid size (11x17).

Setting up PowerPoint on the Mac to use tabloid paper can be a bit complicated.

Go to File > Page Setup.
Click on the Options tab (near bottom of the Page Setup page). This should bring up another popup with options for paper size.
Select Tabloid from the paper size pull-down menu.
Click on OK, bringing you back to the original Page Setup page.
Select Custom from the pull-down menu titled "Slides sized for:". This should automatically make your page size into 16.5 x 10.5.
Click OK and your page is now set up for 11x17 tabloid posters.

For Windows Powerpoint:

Design > Page Setup.
Set width to 17" and height to 11". It's best to do this before designing the document, but it will resize if you have the document already.
In the print menu, after selecting the correct printer, go to Properties.
In the Paper/Quality tab, change Document Size to Tabloid. Ignore the warning that pops up.
Back on the main screen, select "Scale to fit paper".