PowerPoint: Creating Research Posters

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PowerPoint: Creating Research Posters

Table of Contents

Creating a Research or Scientific poster in PowerPoint............................................................3Creating a Research or Scientific poster in PowerPoint, continued................................4Creating a Research or Scientific poster in PowerPoint, continued................................5Creating a Research or Scientific poster in PowerPoint, continued................................6

Example poster layout..............................................................................................................................7

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Creating a Research or Scientific poster in PowerPoint

Introduction A poster presentation should represent a well designed, eye-catching, and attractive display of research or scientific information. Ideally, the poster communicates the results of research activities and promotes the scientific achievements of the poster's presenter(s).

PowerPoint is an excellent software tool for creating a scientific poster. A single slide is used to create the poster and all text and graphics are added to this slide. Downloadable poster templates are readily available.

Layout The layout of the poster should vary with the content of the poster. Despite poster variations, all well-made posters are visually appealing and can be easily navigated by the reader. PowerPoint allows the user to manipulate the layout at many points within the creation process.

The poster may contain a short title, an introduction (and an overview of the research), results, discussion, conclusion and references. Typically, figures (graphics) are favored as a visual representation of the research.

Text Ensure all written components are succinct. An attractive poster balances its written and graphical components. Blocks of texts should be 10 sentences or shorter in length. Generally, a poster is 800 words or less. In short, a good poster quickly transmits its message.

Attend closely to the font size used to identify figures, figure legends and graph axis labels; many viewers are keenly interested in the figures. Appropriately sized fonts and graphics can be comfortably viewed from 1-1.5 meters away bearing in mind a 72-point font is 1 inch in height. Use plain fonts (sans-serif) for headings/titles and serif fonts for text; high contrast text/background combinations add to the readability of the poster.

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Creating a Research or Scientific poster in PowerPoint, continued

Spacing Another consideration is “white space.” White space refers to areas of a page not covered by text or graphics. It may be tempting to place information in every available space within the poster; however, an information-dense poster is difficult to navigate. White space should comprise approximately 33% of the poster.

Graphics

Inspiration

When inserting photographs, diagrams or charts, resolution is essential to the appearance of the graphics. Because the poster is for print, ensure that all graphics are at least 240-300 dots per inch resolution.

PowerPoint is not a pure graphics editor. Use a program like Photoshop to determine the resolution of the image (pixels per inch).

Check out Flickr for poster ideas.http://www.flickr.com/groups/688685@N24/

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Creating a Research or Scientific poster in PowerPoint, continued

Setup To begin building a PowerPoint poster the page size must be calibrated:

Step Action1. With a blank PowerPoint page open, select the Design Tab

on the ribbon.

2. Click the Page Setup button. A new dialogue box will open.3. In the Page Setup dialogue box, enter 56 (142cm) into the

width box and enter 36 (91.5cm) into the height box. These values are the maximum size for a PowerPoint slide.

4. Once the values are entered click OK, and the dialogue box will close.

5. Begin designing the PowerPoint poster.

NOTE: The values (56”x56”) are the maximum size for a PowerPoint slide and will allow for a realistic preview of the final print. Lower output values are allowable if a smaller poster size is desired.

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Creating a Research or Scientific poster in PowerPoint, continued

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Example poster layout