Formats for Poster Printing
Many people have to design posters and then have them printed out. This can be for many reasons such as: a school project, a fund raiser, a party, promoting a business, etc. But before you get your poster printing done, you first have to design it and format it so that it can be printed. There are many formats used for poster printing.
The most common formats for the poster images are bitmaps and vectors. Bitmaps are pixel based formats that you can find in Photoshop, TIFF, and JPEG. The image is made up of millions of tiny pixels that actually form the image. The more pixels there are, the better the quality of the image. Bitmaps are not made to have the scale adjusted. Doing so will result in poorer quality images. Bitmaps are best for photographs or artwork. Vectors are shapes, usually made from programs such as Adobe Illustrator and PowerPoint. Vectors hold information such as: shape, fill color, stroke, etc. They are best for text, graphs, and images without a lot of detail. There are no pixels, so they can be scaled up or down without loss of quality.
PowerPoint is the most common means of creating a poster for printing. It does have a limited size of 56 x 56, but the poster image can be scaled up by most poster printing facilities. PowerPoint should be used for posters with simple design. If you have complex designs, you should use Adobe Illustrator.
If you would like to add an image to your poster, it is best that you use "insert image." Copy and paste does not always work, and it can also lead to formatting problems. Your text should be Arial or New Times Roman, as these are less likely to cause problems and are considered to be the most reliable fonts. Lastly, be sure that any pixel images (bitmap) are scanned at a high resolution of at least 150 ppi at final resolution. Don't forget to save your poster image! You wouldn't want to lose all of your hard work!
Be aware that the color on your computer screen will be much more vivid than that of your actual poster when it is printed. Dark colors always actually print darker. Also, dark posters or posters with a dark background are more likely to get scratched or damaged on the surface. They are also more likely to show fingerprints.
Hopefully all of this information will help you get a better idea of the different kinds of formats used for poster printing. If you take your time and do it right, you can create a stunning poster that you can be proud to say you made!
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