Poster Printing
General Information

The Biology Media Center poster printer is available Monday through Friday during normal business hours or by appointment. To make an appointment, please call Larry Valles at 353-8736 or email him at lvalles@bu.edu, or Dan Primack at danzz@bu.edu. Please try to plan ahead when you need a poster printed. For rush jobs or last- minute unscheduled printing, there is a fee of an extra $25.

Poster Information


We have a Roland FJ42 wide- format poster printer, which produces high quality posters- equal or better than posters from other copy and print stores, at a fraction of the cost. The maximum dimensions for a poster are 41.5x120 inches. (We can resize a poster image to fit the media, but it is best that you create your poster file in the size you want it printed.)

Paper Information

Paper Type Notes
Matte For when budget is the greatest factor. Semi- gloss. medium thickness.
Photobase High- thickness glossy photo paper- our new poster standard, by popular demand. Helps make your presentation stand out.
Film Mylar- based poster material, extra high gloss, very durable, water resistant, easy to roll/transport. Exceptional color quality. Somewhat more expensive.

What to Bring/Supported File Formats

Your poster should be a single graphic file, ready to print. Bring the file on a ZIP disk or CD in Mac or PC format. Email attachments are fine if worked out in advance, but except under extreme circumstances we will not accept files sent through the network or by FTP.

Create your poster in any of the file formats listed in the table. Please note the comments. We do not guarantee results for certain file formats.

When naming your poster file, it would be best to give it a name that indicates who you are and what event, if any, your poster is for (good: NSF2002Bob.ai bad: Myposter.ai).

If you want to print a poster with a solid- color or gradient background, please carefully consider the drawbacks- it will take longer to print, and it may make the poster more susceptible to damage when handled (more ink area to be scratched or water- damaged).

As of June 1, 2004, EVERYONE who wants to print a poster will recieve, free of charge, a reduced size (25%) test print to PROOFREAD and CHECK FOR MISTAKES before the full- size poster is printed.

Poster Format Comments/Notes/Suggestions
CorelDraw 9, 10, 11 Highly recommended.
Adobe Illustrator Highly recommended.
MS PowerPoint Not supported. I can usually print them but results are not gauranteed- Dan
JPG or GIF (picture file) Avoid giving us a .jpg or .gif file which is more than 60mb in size. Due to the enlargement process of the software, the poster will probably not be perfect quality due to pixellation and blocky letters.
PDF PDFs are supported. Make your canvas and image size as large as the final poster .
PostScript files (.ps, .eps)* We take PostScript files for the printer. You may create your own PostScript file for direct printing. Remember to use the "Fit to Print" option to keep you poster on one page.

 

*Always bring the original file as well.

The Poster Process- FYI

The poster printer software works with encapsulated postscript (EPS) files and not directly with the software used to create posters. When we recieve your poster files, our first step is to copy them to the PC and convert them into EPS files. This takes a minute to half an hour, depending on the type of files. These files are then sent to a special printer application, which "cuts up" the EPS in a format the printer can work with. The actual printing can take between 30 minutes to 1.5 hours, depending on the size and complexity of the final poster.