Poster production Guidelines
The Audio Visual Centre offers a complete professional poster production service.
We can design, print and laminate any type of poster up to A0 size.
In order for us to provide the highest possible quality, the following points should be
remembered when preparing materials:
1 Posters can be designed and printed using the following programs: Adobe
PageMaker, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe PDF (Portable Document Format), all of
which are available on NAL and Macollamh. Adobe PageMaker is especially
recommended for its ease of use and compatability. We also print from
QuarkXpress or Microsoft Powerpoint. We do not print from Microsoft Word or
Publisher, Photoshop or any other graphics/paint program.
2 Many people prepare their own posters using Powerpoint. As PowerPoint is
primarily a screen presentation program, it is not geared towards printing in a
large format. Serious errors have been known to occur in reproduction e.g.
important data being lost or shifting around, colours not printing properly or
symbols/grapahs misprinting. Powerpoint uses an on-screen colour mode, RGB,
whereas our in-house large-format plotter uses a four-colour (CMYK) process.
This leads to colours printing differently from how they appear on your computer
screen.
One way in which this can be avoided is to save your completed PowerPoint
poster as a PDF file. PDF (Portable Document Format) can be opened on any
computer which has Acrobat Reader. It preserves the exact layout and formatting
of the poster.
PDF files are produced using the PDF Writer application. This is available free on
NAL. When you install the application, it appears in your computer’s list of
available printers; however, instead of producing a paper print, it converts your
document into a PDF file which you can then save and print. There are various
compression options available when making PDF files. Please ensure that these
are unchecked when saving the file so as to preserve the quality of photographs
and other images.
3 If you must prepare your poster in Powerpoint, the following points should be
borne in mind:
 We usually print posters to standard paper sizes: AO, A1, A2, A3. It is vital
that you use the correct ratio of width to height in your initial design. A good
starting point is A3 (43 cm x 29.7 cm), but you can use larger measurements if
you like. We can easily enlarge your poster from A3 to the required size. The
standard paper sizes that we print to are as follows:
A0
A1
A2
84 cm x 118.9 cm
59.4 cm x 84.1 cm
42 cm x 59.4 cm
1
A3
29.7 cm x 42 cm
We can also print non-standard sizes, depending on your requirements.
 If using PowerPoint, you should design the poster on a single slide. Individual
slides should not be pasted into this slide as they will not reproduce properly.
Go to File/Page Setup/A4 paper. Insert the required measurements. It is not
necessary Use text boxes and insert graphics where appropriate. A good idea
is to divide your page into columns so as to give some order to the layout.
 All graphs and tables should be copied from whatever program they were
created in and pasted into a graphics program. They should then be saved as
image files (jpeg, gif etc) and inserted into the poster using the
insert/picture/from file commands. Alternatively, they can be pasted into
Powerpoint using the "paste special" command. Images should be scaled up or
down before importing them. Graphs created directly within Powerpoint or
Excel are liable to break up and misprint, so this is best avoided.
 It is vitally important that objects within a poster should not be grouped
together. If there is a problem with one element within a group, it may be
difficult or impossible to ungroup and isolate it. Grouping can also lead to
unpredictable results during printing. Avoid grouping.
 Unusual or fancy fonts should be avoided. They may look good on screen, but
will not necessarily work in print. This can in turn have an impact on the
appearance and impact of the poster. Substitution of fonts is time-consuming
and can lead to reformatting of text. Stick to two or three well-known fonts at
most e.g Times (not Times New Roman), Arial, Helvetica etc.
You must also supply us with the fonts you use on the same disk as your
poster.
4. Text should be used sparingly. Too much text leaves less room for images/tables
and can make the poster look cramped and unprofessional. Too little text can be
equally glaring. If you find that your text doesn’t fit, maybe you should consider a
different size of poster or a different layout.
5 Try to be careful in your use of colour. Colours which are too bright or garish will
detract from the overall impact of a poster. Pale, single-colour backgrounds are
better. Blues (especially dark blues) are best avoided as they produce
in Powerpoint should not be used as they will not reproduce properly.
6 One foolproof way to avoid potential problems is to save your poster as a PDF
file. This file can then be opened on any computer using any platform and the
formatting and content will remain exactly as you intended. You should ensure
when creating a PDF file that compression options for graphics are not selected.
Compression leads to poor quality reproduction. Please also make sure that you
2
check the completed PDF for accuracy before sending it out. Are symbols and
other elements showing up correctly? If not, the problem is in your original file.
Adobe Acrobat PDF Writer is available on NAL and Macollamh.
7 Having your poster designed in-house with the AVC enables us to deliver top
quality results. You simply supply us with text and images and we design the
poster for you. The normal lead-in time for this service is seven working days.
The sooner you talk to us, the sooner we can have the finished poster for you.
You will be required to approve the poster before we produce the final print.
8 Images of any type can be scanned in the Audio Visual Centre for use in a poster,
be they photographs, negatives, transparencies or printed images. They can be
scanned in any format or imported from your existing computer files. Should you
wish to scan your own images, they need to be of a high resolution (at least 200
dpi) for proper print reproduction. Web images are not suitable, as they appear
pixelated when magnified. This also happens with photographic backgrounds in
Powerpoint.
9 The use of the web version of the UCD crest or college/departmental/company
logos should be avoided at all costs, as they are not suitable for printing. You can
obtain a high quality copy of the College crest from the Office of Public Affairs.
If working in one of the UCD teaching hospitals, the hospital crest should be
obtained from whatever office deals with printing/stationary.
Please provide crests and logos as vector graphic files.
10 Posters can be printed in standard sizes: A0, A1, A2, A3 or A4 or in any custom
size, bearing in mind that our printer allows for a maximum width of
approximately 34 inches (84 cm). A full matt or gloss-finish lamination service is
also available.
11 An A4/A4 printout must accompany each print job so that we know exactly what
it should look like when printed. If the cost of producing the poster is to be
charged to an account, we must have all of the relevant account details (account
name, account code and a Purchase Order number) before we can commence
work on the poster.
12 It is important that you are contactable at all times in case design or technical
issues arise or changes need to be made. Please supply a telephone number at
which you or a colleague can be reached.
Cardboard carrying tubes are available for a small additional charge.
Should you need any further advice or technical assistance, please don’t hesitate to
get in contact.
AVC phone number: 716 7020
3