The University of South Florida also has large-scale printers for printing posters. 

• The poster printers require separate drivers from the standard printers. They can be found on the Printer Installation Packages page.
• At the current time, poster printing is only available for Windows computers. 
• There are two different paper options available: Satin (glossy) and Heavy (matte) paper. 
• Each individual printer is only able to print one type of paper. Make sure you select and swipe your card on the correct printer. 
• The names of the printer drivers are Plotter_Photo for the Satin finish, and Plotter_Color for the heavy paper.
• Pricing is $3.00 per linear foot for Satin paper, and $1.00 per linear foot for Heavy paper.
• All Shimberg Computer Lab computers are set up for printing to the large-scale printers, unless marked otherwise.

To easily set your poster size:

1. In PowerPoint, set the poster size in Design > Customize > Custom Slide Size*. 
2. When ready to print, go to Print, and select the plotter you wish to print from. You must have the plotter drivers installed to be able to see the plotters.
3. When you’ve selected a plotter, go to Print Properties.
4. In Paper Options, under the Document Size selection box, select Custom.
5. Here, you can specify the exact size of a poster you want by creating a custom layout.
6. When you’ve set the dimensions, name your custom size, click Save.
7. You now have a custom size that you can print.

* Note that although Powerpoint’s maximum slide size is 56” x 56”, the plotters’ paper roll width is 36”, so one of your poster’s dimensions may not exceed 36". Change the poster’s orientation or size as needed.

• The preferred image format is .jpg, but .png and .gif are also acceptable. Images should be inserted directly into PowerPoint (NOT linked from another program).
• Avoid .tiff images if possible, as the files are extremely large. Only use .tif images if presentations are for large screens (like an auditorium).
• If you resize your images, preview your poster before printing, and ensure that the image quality remains above 150 dpi. Doubling the size of an image, for instance, will halve its resolution.
• If you have charts from Excel to include in your poster, simply copy from Excel and paste into PowerPoint.
• It is best to use a font that is cross-platform to ensure that your poster retains the text, spacing, and look you want. Use standard fonts like Aria, Helvetica, or Times (NOT Times New Roman). Make sure all bullets and special characters are in Symbol font, rather than using the characters in the font you use for the text; the special characters are not mapped correctly within such fonts between computer platforms.