Plotter Poster Templates and Design Tips

Sample presentation templates

Created in PowerPoint, these templates are an easy way to make a poster. Each template is a single slide enlarged to poster size, either left blank for your content or with sample text boxes and charts into which you can insert information. Feel free to alter as desired.

To open a template in Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox, right-click your mouse button on the appropriate link below, select “Save Target As” or “Save Link As,” and choose where you would like to save the PowerPoint presentation. Then, open PowerPoint and open the file you just saved.

Showcase Poster Template

• 48″ (4 ft.) wide by 40″ (3.5 ft.) tall, landscape orientation. This template conforms to the required maximum poster size allowed into the Research and Performance Showcase (which is 4 ft. by 4 ft.). Contains four text boxes with borders, and a central AutoShape box with graphics inside, all of which can be deleted/ adjusted.

Showcase Poster Template, Blank

• Same as the poster template above, but completely blank

Maximum-size Poster Template

• 54″ (4.5 ft.) wide by 40″ (3.5 ft.) tall, landscape orientation.
• This template is one of the largest that PowerPoint can easily print out without going through additional resizing steps (larger is possible, but more difficult and is subject to resizing deformities). Note- this poster fills a standard 4 ft. by 6 ft. or even a 4 ft. by 8 ft. board very adequately.

Blank Poster Template with 4 Small Elmhurst College Logos

• 48″ (4 ft.) wide by 40″ (3.5 ft.) tall, landscape orientation, blank with four small E.C. logos, one in each corner.
• You can keep all four or delete/copy and add as many as you wish.

Blank Poster Template w/ Full-Size Semi-Opaque E.C. Logo Background

• 48″ (4 ft.) wide by 40″ (3.5 ft.) tall, landscape orientation, blank with with a semi-opaque faint large E.C. logo visible in the background behind your text and pictures.

Multiple PowerPoint Slides Poster, 9 Slides

• 50″ (roughly 4 ft.) wide by 38″ (roughly 3 ft.) tall, landscape orientation. Contains nine individual PowerPoint slides that are each 16 inches wide by 12 inches tall. Minimal use of color.
• (To put your PowerPoint Presentation into a poster template, open your PPT file and go to File/Save As. Under ”Save As Type” choose”Windows Metafile (*.wmf)” and then save your file. You’ll then be asked how many slides to export in that format- choose ”Every Slide.”Your slides will be saved as images and you can insert them into a template like any other image.)

Multiple PowerPoint Slides Poster, 12 Slides

• 54″ (roughly 4.5 ft.) wide by 40″ (roughly 3.5 ft.) tall, landscape orientation. Contains twelve individual PowerPoint slides that are each 16 inches wide by 12 inches tall. Minimal use of color.
• (To put your PowerPoint Presentation into a poster template, open your PPT file and go to File/Save As. Under ”Save As Type” choose”Windows Metafile (*.wmf)” and then save your file. You’ll then be asked how many slides to export in that format- choose ”Every Slide.”Your slides will be saved as images and you can insert them into a template like any other image.)

Sample Template A

• 40″ (roughly 3.5ft) wide by 36″ (3 ft.) tall, landscape orientation. Features seven text boxes with labels such as Introduction and “Objectives,” “Population Studied,” and “Discussions.” Uses color sparingly. Also includes a text box for highlighting the funding source. One graph demonstrates findings.

Sample Template B

• 40″ (roughly 3.5ft) wide by 36″ (3 ft.) tall, landscape orientation. Four text boxes with a variety of subheadings. An organizational chart and a bar graph display data graphically. There is space available to display the poster number.

Sample Template C

• 56″ (roughly 4.5 ft.) wide by 36″ (3 ft. ) tall, landscape orientation. A template based on a presentation by Brad Sagarin. Four graphs in grayscale. Includes an image that is a screenshot from a computer program (which can be easily deleted). Four text boxes labeled “Introduction,” Method,” “Results,” and “Discussion.”

Elmhurst College Logo

The Office of Communications and Public Affairs has graciously allowed the use of the Elmhurst College “Shield” logo for academic use on plotter posters.  They request that the logo not be graphically adjusted with drop-shadows, reflections, or in any other way besides size.

• Elmhurst College “Shield” – 100 px wide (small)
• Elmhurst College “Shield” – 250 px wide (medium)
• Elmhurst College “Shield” – 500 px wide (large)
• Elmhurst College “Shield” – 1000 px wide (extra large)

To match your blue colors to the Shield you can may be able to use one of these colors codes:

• RGB Hexadecimal (8-bit): #1B2E85
• RGB as Actual Value (8-bit): #27-46-133

Hints on creating posters

Some hints from the library staff:

• Our paper width is 42 inches. However, to avoid cutting off, it is advised that you leave a one-inch margin on the dimensions that are controlled by the paper width. Thus, one of your two dimensions (height or width) should not exceed 40 inches. For example, you can have a poster that is 60 inches long, but is 40 inches wide.
• PowerPoint has a page size limit of 56 inches. This means if you try to set your slide size to be larger that 56 inches, PowerPoint will balk. However, there is a way to get around this: you can set the page size (both width and length) of your poster to exactly half of the desired size. If you want a poster to be 6 feet long (72 inches) and 40 inches tall, you can go into File, Page Setup and set your page size to be 36 inches long by 20 inches tall. Then in the Print box, you can “Scale to Fit” to a piece of paper that is 72 inches long and 40 inches tall.
• You can rotate your document to landscape as needed.
• If you are unsure whether your poster will print properly to the desired paper side, select the option “Shrink to Fit” in the Print window.
• Make sure you double-check your page setup, and ensure that the width and height you’ve set up match the paper size in the Print window (edit Paper Size as needed).
• Spell-check!