Learning Development Unit

IT Skills Development

Course Code: PD0001

An Introduction to Poster Design Using Microsoft PowerPoint

Version 1.0

www.istraining.bham.ac.uk

Course Title
Author: Nandy Millan and Paul Foxall Version: 1.0, January 2007 2007 The University of Birmingham All rights reserved; no part of this publication may be photocopied, recorded or otherwise reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form by any electrical or mechanical means without permission of the copyright holder.

Trademarks: Microsoft Windows is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation. All brand names and product names used in this handbook are trademarks, registered trademarks, or trade names of their respective holders.

Contents

Course Title ............................................................................................................................................... ii Author: Nandy Millan and Paul Foxall................................................................................................ ii Contents.......................................................................................................................................................i About the workbook...................................................................................................................................1 How to do something .................................................................................................................................1 Tip ..............................................................................................................................................................1 Danger!.......................................................................................................................................................1 Before getting started. ................................................................................................................................2 Examples of possible combinations of Heading/Sections: .................................................................2 The Basics ..................................................................................................................................................3 Setting up PowerPoint for A0 size .............................................................................................................4 Using Guides and Ruler .........................................................................................................................5 Deleting and hiding guides.....................................................................................................................6 Creating text boxes and adding text .......................................................................................................6 Inserting text from a Word document.................................................................................................7 Formatting text ...................................................................................................................................7 Using Images..........................................................................................................................................8 Inserting image from file ....................................................................................................................9 Colours and borders............................................................................................................................9 Text box colours and borders .............................................................................................................9 Order and grouping objects ................................................................................................................9 Ordering .............................................................................................................................................9 Grouping.............................................................................................................................................9 Poster Background ...............................................................................................................................10 Where to print A0 size posters .........................................................................................................11 Appendix .....................................................................................................................................................i

About the workbook

The workbook is designed as a reference for you to use after the course has finished. The workbook is yours to take away with you so feel free to make any notes you need in the workbook itself The workbook is divided into sections with each section explaining about a particular feature of the program or how to do a particular task. Sections that take you through a particular procedure step-by-step look like this:

How to do something
Do this first. Then do this. Then do this to finish.

There are also a number of text boxes to watch out for throughout the workbook. These will help you to get the most out of the course.

Tip The thumbs-up symbol in the margin indicates a tip. These tips will help you work more effectively.

Danger! The thumbs-down picture in the margin indicates common mistakes or pitfalls to be avoided.

Introduction to Poster Design

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Before getting started.

Clear design starts with clear thinking. Before you begin shuffling charts, graphs and photos, ask yourself this question: if the viewer carries away only one idea, what do I want it to be? Now write down your answer. This is the theme of your poster, the focal point. Everything you choose to include on your poster should support this theme. Posters tell stories. Your poster tells the viewer what you did, why you did it and what you learned from doing it. The poster should include a statement of the problem investigated, a description of the research methods used (if relevant), results or findings, and a summary. Keep your poster simple and visually uncluttered. Someone standing three feet away should quickly understand what each component is and why it is there. On a poster, columns are easier for the eye to follow than information laid out left to right. Effective communication starts with knowing who your audience is. At poster sessions there is intense competition for audience attention. In their first 3 seconds your audience will determine whether to stay and explore your content or leave. If they stay you have 30 seconds to secure their attention by conveying an overall understanding of your subject matter. Divide your information into main sections. These sections typically include: Title, Authors, Affiliations, Introduction, Materials & Methods, Results, Conclusions, References, Acknowledgements and perhaps a photo of the author(s), and the I.D. You may also wish to provide a handout version of your poster with detailed contact information, and references.

Examples of possible combinations of Heading/Sections:

Combination 1 Author/Title/Affiliation Objectives Data Sources/Settings Study Design Data Collection Principle Finding Conclusions Funding Sources Funding Sources Combination 2 Author/Title/Affiliation Objectives Methods Results Conclusions Combination 3 Author/Title/Affiliation Abstract Methods Descriptive Issues Statistical Analysis Conclusions Relevance Funding Source Combination 4 Author/Title/Affiliation Background Information Research Question Methods Conclusions Future Research Questions Funding Sources

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The flow of your poster should be from top left to the bottom right. The movement of the eye over the poster should be natural (down columns or along rows). Use arrows, pointing hands, numbers or letters to clarify the sequence or flow of the poster. Some presenters will number the sections in sequence to guide the reader through the poster.

The Basics
Each poster should have a title. The poster title is the first level of communication with the viewer. It should clearly communicate the essence of your poster. It should be readable from 15 feet away and should be bold and bright print. Background materials and graphics should have straight edges and even margins. If you are pasting separate components onto your poster, use a ruler and sharp knife to cut out charts, graphics, photos and text. Whenever possible, reinterpret text as charts, graphs or illustrations. People are able to process images an amazing 60,000 times faster than text, so aim for 30-40% of your poster to be graphic content. Illustrations and photographs should be clear and properly proportioned. Image files should be high resolution (150 dpi or higher), and tiffs or gifs are best. Using the drag-and-drop method to adjust the width or height of an image can result in distortion. Its better to resize images using commands such as, image size, scale or fit content proportionally. Connect you text to the graphic elements. If a paragraph refers to a diagram off to the side somewhere, say so! For example, Winds blowing over ocean generate waves Fig. 1). Viewers cant read small captions from a distance. Use 24-point (24pt) type or larger (captions can be 18pt; titles should be at least 85pt).

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Setting up PowerPoint for A0 size

It is very important to set the poster size first! Otherwise, if you work in A4 (default size) and scale up to A0, the print quality will be poor, especially for any image included. Create a new black presentation. Choose the Blank Slide layout. Go to File on menu toolbar and select Page setup. From the Slides sized for list, choose Custom.

Type in the sizes required. For exact A0, this will be: Width Height 118.9 cm (46) 84.1 cm (33)

Orientation for Slides should automatically show Landscape. Click OK

The slide still fits into the screen, so it may appear that your new size has not taken effect. However, PowerPoint has scaled the page down to fit.

Use this drop down, or hold CTRL and roll the mouse wheel, to zoom in and out.

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When creating your own poster, the size will depend on the printer you have available. You will probably have to allow for a non-printable margin, and reduce the size of your poster a little, accordingly.

If working to a different size, the standard international metric paper sizes are: AO A1 A2 A3 118.9 x 84.1 cm 84.1 x 59.4 cm 59.4 x 42 cm 42 x 29.7 cm

Using Guides and Ruler

For a large, complex layout, it may help to use to use Guides (moveable dotted lines that appear on screen but do not print) and to view the Ruler to arrange them precisely:

To view the ruler: Choose View on the menu toolbar, and select the Ruler option.

To view and add Guides

Choose View on the menu toolbar, and select the Grid and Guides option. Tick the Guide settings to Display Drawing Guides on Screen. To add another guide, hold down the CTRL key and drag an existing guide across. To help with the alignment, click on a guide to see its distance from the centre. Add and drag guides across, as appropriate for your design layout, to help line up text and images. The figure below is an example of the use of adding guides to a slide. There is a margin each edge, 4 main columns and a title area at the top. For more accuracy, add extra (narrow) columns between your main columns, as a guide for leaving space between text boxes.
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Deleting and hiding guides.

To delete a guide, drag it off the slide.

To hide the guides without deleting them, return to View/Grid and Guides and un-tick Display Drawing Guides on Screen.

Creating text boxes and adding text

PowerPoint uses text boxes to hold each piece of text. It is possible to create one large text box and apportion text usi8ng that, but much better to add a new text box for each block of text; you may then position the text box as necessary. Usually it is best to type straight into text boxes within PowerPoint, but you can also insert text from a Word document.

In PowerPoint:

Click the Text Box button on the Drawing toolbar Click and drag across, to place a text box where required on the slide. It will expand when you add text.

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Inserting text from a Word document.

Keep PowerPoint open, launch Word and open the relevant file. Select just the text required, without any extra space around it. To change Word wrap options, right-click in the text box and choose Format Text Box/Text Box tab

Formatting text
Try different fonts and sizes to see what fits best, keeping in mind that some fonts take up more space than others, even for the sane font size. There are different design considerations too: generally sans-serif font such as Arial is clearer to read (especially from a distance) but Times New Roman will allow you to fit more text into the same space. So it may be appropriate to use a sans-serif font e.g. Arial for headings and Times New Roman for the main text.

Moving and aligning text boxes or images. To move an object, click and drag it on the slide:

Align objects to guides Drag the object near to a guide, and its edge or centre will snap to guide. To temporally turn this off, press the ALT key as you drag the object.

Moving and aligning objects with precision. The grid is normally visible set of lines to which by default objects are attracted. The spacing of the grid and whether objects snap to it are controlled by options in View/Grid and Guides.

If you also wish objects to tend to line up with each other. Choose View on the menu toolbar and select the Grid and Guides option. Tick Snap objects to other objects.

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Default setting. The grid acts like a magnet, attracting objects which are moved close to it.

Give objects grid lines that go through their vertical and horizontal edges. These exert a magnetic pull on other objects, helping to align them.

Display grid or guides to help manual positioning of objects Defines space between lines of the grid, i.e. how fine it is.

To constrain an object so that is moves only horizontally or vertically, press the SHIFT key as you drag it. You can also nudge an object into place by selecting it and using the arrow keys.

To align any number of items (text boxes, images etc) on the slide: Select all the items you wish to align (using the SHIFT key) From the Draw menu, choose Align or Distribute. Click the option you require (e.g. Align Top). Use the same menu to Distribute items evenly across the slides, for example Distribute Horizontally.

Using Images
For a large poster, images need to be of good quality and high resolution to work well. A small picture stretched out is likely to pixilate and lose clarity. Prepare your image beforehand and check to see how they would print at the required size. It is advisable to save them into one folder, ready to insert.

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Inserting image from file

To insert images from file, go to Insert on the menu toolbar, then Picture and select From File. Browse to the saved picture file and insert it. Once inserted, elect the image, move and re-size it as required.

Colours and borders

Well chosen colours can be used to great effect to enhance your poster. Use bold colours for areas which you wish to emphasise (such as main headings) and softer colours for subheadings, for example. Try to keep good contrast between text and background colour.

Text box colours and borders

Select the main heading text box. Go to Format on the menu toolbar and select Text Box Choose Fill Color, Line Colour and Line Weight as you wish. To apply the same colours to a number of text boxes, you can select them together by holding down the SHIFT key, and then apply formatting as required.

Order and grouping objects

To arrange objects such as text boxes and images in your poster, some further commands in the Draw menu (bottom left of screen) can be useful, e.g.:

Ordering
If you need to add one item on top of another, e.g. a logo onto a coloured box, remember you can use Order option from the Draw menu to bring the selected forward, or send the back.

Grouping
To help with the layout, you can group together any combination of images and text boxes that you want to keep together. For example:

Select the main heading text box and any other required object
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From the Draw menu (bottom left of screen) and click Group You can now drag, move or re-size this group as one unit. Remember, if you wish to modify any of these components later you will need to Ungroup then again first.

Poster Background
Try different background colours for your poster, to find the one that complements the main content without distracting from it. To apply a plain background colour:

Go to Format on the menu toolbar and select the Background, and then click the dropdown box. Try More colors or Fill Effects for further options. While a plain background colour is probably safer and often recommended, sometimes a picture related to the topic can work well, providing it does not distract from, or obscure, the text. The picture would need to be prepared and saved as an image file first. To apply a picture as a background:

Go to Format on the menu toolbar and click the dropdown box. Click on Fill Effects, then the Pictures tab. Click the Select Pictures button to browse for your image file (previously prepared and saved). Click Insert, OK and Apply.

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Where to print A0 size posters

To print your poster full size, you need to find a large enough printer to handle this.

The Photographic and Graphic Services provides a range of professional digital printing and imaging services to support teaching, research, and academic publishing. Although based in the Medical School our services are available to all university staff, students, schools and departments.

http://www.dpi-pags.bham.ac.uk/

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Appendix
Guidelines for Posters Your poster should be designed to convey the essence of your research in a clear and eye-catching way, to appeal to colleagues as well as nonspecialists. The ideal poster will: Attract passers-by to stop and take an interest Make a good impression. Enable the viewer to remember key details of your research (what, why, how who?) Encourage viewers to contact you for more information about your research.

Viewing distance You should ensure that your poster can be read clearly from a distance of 1 metre or more.

Viewing time It should be possible for the viewer to absorb the general information in your poster in a short time (up to 3 minutes)

General tips on how to present your poster Title Clarity Colour Should be meaningful but not complicated. Try not to baffle the readers (especially the non-specialists Your display should be visually clear and easy to follow, with a clear description of the aims and method. Good use of colour is helpful. Even if the majority of material is in black and white it is important to highlight with colour. However, bear in mind that too much colour can be visually confusing Ensure that the general overview of the poster is clear, and that the more detailed information is not too complex. Demonstrate how your research fits in with the world as a whole, to help viewers relate to it. Make sure the images you use are clear and of good quality
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Message Relevance Images

Introduction to Poster Design

Graphics

These must be sharp and relevant to the presentation. Charts, drawings and illustrations should be simpler and more heavily drawn than those you would use for slides. Use colour is encourages to add emphasis effectively. Be constituent in your choice of font, limiting yourself to one or two. Ensure that the font size is legible from the indicated viewing distance Text and graphics should be grouped together in relevant and visually stimulating sets Guide the viewers eye in an orderly way. Ensure that there is a logical path of items to be followed. It may be appropriate to link sections with lines and arrows Adding an outer border to your poster, and bordering any sections contained within, generally helps define your display clearly. Identify any contributors other than those shown at the top of your display Provide your contact details to encourage people to find out more about your research. This could involve adding leaflets or cards for readers to take with them. A concise summary may be useful. This could be done by giving a set of key points

Font-style and size

Grouping Layout/flow

Borders

Contributors Contact point

Summary

Appendix

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