Briscoe, M.H. 1996. Preparing Scientific Illustrations: A Guide to Better Posters, Presentations, and Publications, 2nd ed. Springer-Verlag, New York.

Portable Document Format (PDF) ensures your printed or viewed file retains the formatting that you intended. The PDF format is also useful if you intend to use commercial printing methods.

Use PDF format when you want a file that:

• Looks the same on most computers.
• Has a small file size.
• Complies with an industry format.

Important

• Don’t have the PDF option? Download and install Acrobat from Adobe Systems.
• To view a PDF file, download and install Adobe Acrobat reader on your computer from Adobe Systems. Click Get Adobe Reader.
• To create PDF files, download and install Acrobat from Adobe Systems.

How to create a PDF from PowerPoint

PowerPoint 2010 (Windows)

1. Click the File tab.
2. Click Save As.
3. In the File Name box, enter a name for the file, if you haven’t already.
4. In the Save as type list, click PDF (*.pdf).
   • If you want the file to open in the selected format after saving, select the Open file after publishing check box.
   • If the document requires high print quality, click Standard (publishing online and printing).
   • If the file size is more important than print quality, click Minimum size (publishing online).
5. Click Options to set the page to be printed, to choose whether markup should be printed, and to select output options. Click OK when finished.
6. Click Save.

PowerPoint 2007 (Windows)

1. Click the Microsoft Office Button, point to the arrow next to Save As, and then click PDF or XPS.
2. In the File name list, type or select a name for the presentation.
3. In the Save as type list, click PDF.
4. If you want to open the file immediately after saving it, select the Open file after publishing check box. This check box is available only if you have a PDF reader installed on your computer.
5. Next to Optimize for, do one of the following, depending on whether file size or print quality is more important to you:
   • If the presentation requires high print quality, click Standard (publishing online and printing).
   • If the print quality is less important than file size, click Minimum size (publishing online).
6. To specify various options for the file, click Options. (Find links to more information on these options in the See Also section.) Click OK.
7. Click Publish.

If you want to make changes to the PDF after saving it, return to your original 2007 Microsoft Office system file in which you created it and save the file as PDF again.

Although Microsoft® PowerPoint® (hence referred to a PowerPoint), can also be used for the creation of large format posters, Researchposters.co.za strongly recommends against using it, as PowerPoint is not designed as a print package due to limitations in the software. PowerPoint files don’t always print the way they appear on-screen and files can encounter problems when moved from one computer to another – Colours change, graphics disappear or misprint, text and labels shift position, Greek letters or symbols can vanish.

Neither Imago Visual nor Researchposters.co.za will assume responsibility for poorly rendered or formatted posters printed from PowerPoint files, nor will reimbursements of printing charges be made.

Notwithstanding PowerPoint’s unpredictable print output, and as it is being widely used for presentations (ideal) and posters by most academic/business institutions the world over, Researchposters.co.za has been designed to assist anyone creating posters using PowerPoint.

A solution – Conversion of PowerPoint files to PDF

To overcome some of the problems encountered when creating posters using PowerPoint, Researchposters.co.za recommends converting PowerPoint poster files to a PDF.  If you submit your PowerPoint files, we can convert them to PDF for you and send you “digital proofs” to review before we print the final poster. Please bear in mind that the sending of electronic proofs takes time, so an extra day, at least, is needed and should be added to the shipping time.

Proof carefully and submit the resulting file for printing by using the order from.

Read more on creating PDF documents from PowerPoint.

1. Drop-shadow effects of any kind
2. Transparency effects on shapes and text boxes
3. 3D effects such as embossing

Standard research poster sections:

• The poster title (with author names underneath followed by the names of affiliated institutions)
• Introduction, Background, or Abstract (a place to quickly summarize your topic and trigger your audience’s interest)
• Materials and Methods or Process (a place to describe your process and what led to your results)
• Results (the place where the results of your experiment are explained)
• Conclusions or Discussion (the place where you explain why your results are conclusive and provide the reader with a short but solid justification of your hypothesis)
• References or Literature Cited (This is where you make a list of the literature you have cited regarding this project. List the names of authors, publications and publishing dates)
• Acknowledgements sometimes replaced by Contact Information (This section is optional but if you have the room you can use it to thank the people who helped with your project of provide your contact information)

If the conference is allocating a 120cm x 90cm space, here is a visual example of how some commonly used size posters will fit in that space.

As illustrated in the above diagram, the allocated poster area is not necessarily the actual dimensions of your poster. Generally, standard poster sizes are used which fit just within the allocated space. If a custom size poster is required, this can simply be determined and set when you starting your poster layout.