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PowerPoint was designed to create on-screen presentations. It was not intended for poster design. However, PowerPoint presentations can be easily modified for poster format by using the 4x4 layout feature of the MacOS print system and PowerPoint's "Scale to Fit Paper" option. This will be illustrated using the large- format HP DesignJet 5500 printer in 004 Smith Hall.

A typical PowerPoint slide has a 4x3 aspect ratio, matching typical screen resolutions of 640x480, 800x600 , and 1024x768. When you print these slides on US letter-size paper, you get one 10"x7.5" slide per page, centered on the 11"x8.5" paper. By changing the "printer" and "paper size" settings, and the order in whic h the slides are printed. the slides will be properly arranged and printed on a 40"x30" roll of printer pa per.

(This document assumes that you are working in the Smith Hall Computing Site. You can use your own system instead by first preparing your PC as directed in HP DesignJet 5500 Poster Printing Instructions for Windows.)

Creating a PDF file

For this example, you will only select the printer and the paper size choices. The "document size" always remains the same size as in the "on-screen show", namely 10"x7.5". You first select two options from the File pull-down menu, one for page setup, and one for printing to create the Adobe PDF file.

1. Page Setup...
   Select File -> Page Setup....
   • The displayed width and height must be in a 4 to 3 ratio, for example, Width: 10 and Height: 7.5
   • Note the page "Orientation"
   • Press the OK button.
2. Print...
   Select File -> Print....
   • Select "Name:" HP DesignJet 5500.
   • Click the Properties button.
     • In the "Layout" tab choose the correct "Orientation" for the slide, and select "Pages Per Sheet: 16
     
     • Click the Advanced... button.
       • Select "Paper/Output - Paper Size:" 30_by_40"
       • Click the OK button
     • Click the OK button
   • Check Print to File
   • Select the Print range: Slides radio button.
   • Type "Slides:" 1,5,9,13,2,6,10,14,3,7,11,15,4,8,12,16
   • Check Scale to fit paper
   
   • Click the OK button.
   • Type the output filename (e.g.,"poster.ps"). Be sure to type the .ps extension and the quotation marks.
   • Click the Save button to generate the PostScript output file.

   The resulting PS file will be one page with the 16 selected slides. The slides will be arranged to be read column by column.

   To convert the PS file to PDF use Adobe Distiller. If you do have Adobe Acrobat on your PC you can transfer the file to Strauss and distill it with the commmand:

   distill poster.ps
   

   For more information see Adobe Acrobat Reader and Distiller

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   Last updated: Nov 28, 2005
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