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Microsoft PowerPoint Producing a poster

As part of your studies, you may need to produce a simple poster. While a poster can be (and often is) produced in PowerPoint, it can be a little tricky and it is recommended that you have a good working knowledge of PowerPoint before attempting it. If you are unsure of any of the terms, the help desk can assist you. Alternatively, you can book a more in-depth training session with the IT Training Team: ask at the help desk for details.

Why use Microsoft PowerPoint?

Microsoft Office is not really designed for image manipulation. However, PowerPoint has a facility for exporting slides as images: this image can then be printed in any size. In this help sheet, we will create an A3 slide, fill it with images and text and export it to be printed on A4 and A3 paper sizes.

Loading PowerPoint
1. Click the Start menu; 2. Select All Programs Microsoft Office Microsoft PowerPoint 2010.

Resizing your slide

1. Select the Design tab. 2. Select Page Setup.

Microsoft Powerpoint producing a poster 1. In the Slides Sized For drop-down menu, select A3 Paper. 2. If you want your poster to be upright, select the Portrait radio button. If you want it to be wider than it is tall, select the Landscape radio button. 3. Click OK.

Preparing the slide

In order to prepare your slide, you will need to delete the default Title and Subtitle elements. 1. Hover your mouse cursor on the border of the Click to add Title textbox until it looks like this: 2. Click once. The border should become solid, and the words Click to add Title should still appear in the box. If it has a dashed appearance and the text has vanished, you have selected the contents of the box. Try clicking in the border again. 3. With the box selected in solid mode, press the Delete key on your keyboard. This will delete the text box. 4. Do the same with the Subtitle text box.

Using the Insert menu

In order to produce the poster, we will use the Insert tab. This is how you can add various elements to your poster. 1. Click the Insert tab, and the following will appear: 2. The two elements you will be using are Text Box and Picture;

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Microsoft Powerpoint producing a poster a. A Text Box is used to display words. b. A Picture will allow you to insert both images from the internet, and pictures stored in the standard Microsoft image library. c. Clip Art allows you to choose from a range of simple pre-installed images which can enhance your poster.

Inserting a Text Box

1. Select Text Box from the Insert tab. Your mouse cursor will turn into an arrow pointing downwards; 2. Click on the screen where you want the box to start, and drag to produce a rectangle. Dont worry if you get it slightly wrong, you can always resize the box later. 3. Your textbox will appear on screen. Dont worry about the size; it will automatically get bigger as you type. 4. Try typing some text now. You will see it automatically appear in the text box. These corner handles are used to resize. Click and drag to change the size of the box. This green handle is used to rotate a text box, so you can have the words at an angle. When the border is dashed, you can type in the box. When it is solid, the box itself is selected.

Resizing is fairly easy: just click on the corner handle you wish to expand from and drag.

Moving a Textbox
1. You are currently in editing mode. To change this, click once on the border of the text box, as we did with the Title Text Box. 2. As you can see, the border is no longer dashed, and the text is not editable. You can now move the box around by clicking on it once more and dragging it into position.

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Microsoft Powerpoint producing a poster

Inserting a picture from Clip Art

Clip Art is the free library of images provided by Microsoft. It can be used (sparingly!) to liven up your poster. 1. Click the Insert tab and select Clip Art. 2. In the Task Pane, which appears on the right-hand side of the screen, do the following: 3. In the Search for field, type something related to your topic, e.g. computer. 4. Click Go. 5. In the space below, you will see images appearing. Scroll through until you find one you like and then click on it. 6. The image will appear in the centre of the screen. 7. You can now resize the image using the corner handles and green rotation handle as described earlier for the text box.

Inserting a picture from your computer

You may wish to include your own images in the poster. 1. 2. 3. 4. Click the Insert tab and then select Picture. In the dialog box, navigate to your image, before clicking on Insert. The image will appear onscreen. You can now resize the image using the corner handles and green rotation handle as described earlier.

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Microsoft Powerpoint producing a poster

Exporting and printing your poster

PowerPoint is not very good at printing slides on different sized paper. To this end, we will export the PowerPoint slide as an image, which is much easier to manipulate.

Saving the file as an image

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. When you have completed your poster, click on File. Select Save As The Save As dialog box will appear. Choose a name for your project, e.g. Presentation 1. From the Save as type: drop-down menu, select JPEG File Interchange Format. 6. Choose a location in which to save the file, and click Save. 7. You will be asked if you want to save every side or the current slide only. Choose current slide only.

Printing the image in A4 or A3

1. Navigate to the location where you have saved your PowerPoint Image and open it if it is not already open. 2. Double click the icon. This will load the image in Windows Photo Viewer. 3. At the top of the window, you will see the following options: Select the second one along: Print Print. 4. A new window will appear. 5. There are a number of printers available: a. If you want to print the poster on A4 size paper, then select A4 Colour. You do not need to change any settings for this, so click Next and go to step 6 of this process.

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Microsoft Powerpoint producing a poster

b. To print the poster in A3: i. Select A3 Colour from the drop down menu under Printer. ii. Select A3 from the drop down menu under Paper size. 6. Click the Print box in the bottom right-hand corner of the dialogue box. 7. You can send the print job from any computer in the Learning Resources Centre (LRC). However you will have to go to Level 1 south to find the A4 and A3 colour printers to swipe your card. 8. You will now need to swipe and release the job as usual from the A3 or A4 printer. Check you have enough credit!

Congratulations! You have successfully created your first poster!

Tel: 020 7815 6678/6679 Email: llr-itsupport@lsbu.ac.uk

Produced by LLR 11/07/2012

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