Poster Printing from PowerPoint
Last Modification: March 26, 20131
This document is a work in progress. Please notify Alan Dunwell (dunwell@jila.colorado.edu, Room S264, 2-5308) with any correction or suggestions.
Also on the web at
https://jila.colorado.edu/~software/installs/PosterPrintingfromPowerPoint.htm
The poster printer, an Hewlet-Packard DesignJet 1055CM wide format printer, is located in the JILA Terminal Room. Often it is accessed by way of Microsoft PowerPoint software. No discussion here about how to actually use PowerPoint for making posters except for how to access the Poster Printer once you have a poster prepared in PowerPoint. Since the process of getting a poster from PowerPoint to the Poster Printer is somewhat confusing, this “Cheat Sheet” is intended to be a helpful reminder for folks that only print now and then.
- Open PowerPoint and create or open you document
- Select File, Print from the menu bar
- Select HP DesignJet 1055cm PS(S240). Only the Postscript driver is available for Mac.
- Leave Presets as defaults
- In the pull-down select Copies and Pages
- Slides - radio button for All
- checkbox for Scale to Fit paper
- checkbox for a Frame if desired
- checkbox for Show Quick Preview
- click on the Page Setup button to open that window. Most often you won’t see the size you need in the pull down list so
- Use Custom
- Select paper sizes as needed. (eg. Width 36, Height 40) Note that you will need to coordinate this with whether your document is Portrait or Landscape. The roll of paper is 36" max, so this might be your height or your width depending.
- Slides - Select Portrait or landscape. Your above selection of paper width and height along with the Scale to Fit will be reflected in the Preview screen. Check there and mod the W/H here as needed. NOTE: There may be problems with landscape and scaling to fit the paper. If you have troubles, select Portrait and adjust the W/H accordingly till the preview looks right.
- Options button
- Format for: HP DesignJet 1055cm PS(S240)
- Paper Size: Manage Custom Sizes button
- Click the “+” symbol to activate the other fields
- Enter Width/Height as needed, click OK
- Click OK
- other options only as needed. Select OK to return to the Copies and Pages screen
- All other pull-downs only as needed. You should not need to select the Scale to Fit in the other pull-downs.
Look over your preview, it should show your poster properly. Unfortunately, there is a bug in the print driver and it does NOT show the scaling, you will most likely just see the bottom left corner of the contents. It does show you the orientation and whether the print contents are proper for that orientation, but it does not scale the contents of the poster down. It WILL print properly though. Just use this a guideline to check the orientation of the poster and contents. If necessary go back into the Page Setup and/or the Options and mod the Orientation/W/H parameters to change your appearance for portrait or landscape or to account for any clipping.
If all looks good, select Print. This will take a while as the postscript code has to be converted to HPGL (Hewlett-Packard Graphics Language) code for the printer. You will see the Receiving Data flashing on the printer readout and eventually it will start printing. Be patient.
Don’t forget to log your print on the sign-out sheet.
- Open PowerPoint and create or open you document
- Select File, Print from the menu bar
- Select “HP DesignJet 1055CM (HPGL2). Avoid the postscript (PS3) selection since any postscript code will need to be converted to HPGL (Hewlett-Packard Graphics Language) code for the printer and will just take longer.
- Click Printer Properties link
- Paper Size Tab
- radio button for Portrait or Landscape
- Paper Size to open that window
- check pulldown for sizes. If not what you want select More Sizes button and Custom1: and fill in the width and height. The roll of paper is 36" max, so this might be your height or your width depending on your orientation selection, match that up. You can select smaller but you may have to do your own trim or have a wide margin.
- Select OK to return to the Paper Size Tab
- skip over the type/source or change as needed. Go to the ZoomSmart section
- radio button for Fit to this Page
- check pulldown for sizes it that is what you selected in the Paper Size window. If not what you want select the More Sizes button to open that window.
- just leave name as Custom1:
- width and height as you did in the paper size window.
- OK to return to the Paper Size Tab. If you get a question about the Application Page not the same as the Scaled Page, then mod one or the other as needed or ignore.
- Layout Tab - shows quick view of orientation and scaling sizes
- Option Tab - select color/quality/copies options as needed
- Advanced Tab
- select process in printer. This makes for the fastest printing
- Auto-rotate checkbox.
- others only as needed
- Click OK and look at your preview.
- Select Print All Slides to get your full poster.
- Note that there is no option for adding borders so you will need to do that in PowerPoint if desired.
At this point the preview should show your poster correctly. If the orientation is wrong or there is clipping return to the paper and zoom settings to adjust Orientation/W/H until the preview looks right. Then select Print. You will see the Receiving Data flashing on the printer readout and eventually it will start printing.
Be patient, it has to convert the postscript to HPGL so it takes a while.
Don’t forget to log your print on the sign-out sheet.