Staff and Student Posters: How to order

Welcome to our guidance on how to design and print conference posters from Microsoft PowerPoint. Our templates, advice, and professional printing service can help you achieve great results every time.

If your poster is representing the University at a conference or will be displayed in your department, you will need to use the official University PowerPoint templates. There are two templates available, portrait and landscape, and they are set up at the correct size with the right fonts, colours, logo and layout.

Follow our 4-step process below to create a professional, effective poster that really shows your research in the best light.

Step 1: See some examples

Conference poster PPT examples This will help you get a feel for what makes a good poster.

Step 2: Design your poster

Download one of our templates to get started, but do check out the guidelines too, as they will give you some important technical guidance to make sure your poster looks great.

Henley templates can be found on the following link https://hly.ac/HlyBrandTools

Step 3: Save as a PDF

Once you've designed your poster, you should save it as a PDF before you upload it to CPS. There are lots of ways to make PDF files, but the process below is our recommended method for a really accurate result.

You must be either using Microsoft Office 2007, 2010 or later on a Windows PC.

1. Within PowerPoint, select File>Save As (or Office Button>Save As if you are using Office 2007). This will bring up a dialog box.
2. Name your file and select an appropriate location to save it to.
3. Within the drop down menu Save as type, select PDF (*.pdf). The options at the
   bottom of the box will change.
4. Ensure that:
   • Open file after publishing is ticked (this will open the completed pdf),
   • Standard (publishing online and printing) is selected.
5. Select Save

Important: Please remember to review your pdf file before sending it for printing.

Normal or premium route?

We print most posters directly from PDF files. Whatever you send us, we will print - provided it meets basic visual identity guidelines for the University. However, if you would like us to help you make your poster look more professional, you can opt for our premium design route and send us the PowerPoint file for us to work on. This is a chargeable service, charged at the studio rate of £60 per hour. If you would like to take the premium route, please skip to step 4 and use the check box on the order form to let us know. There is no need to follow step 3 and make a PDF. Take a look at the examples PDF for a guide to the kind of things we can do to improve your poster.

Step 4: Upload to CPS

You can now use our order form to upload your file and give us precise details about your print requirements. Go to the poster order form.

Collection or delivery?

You can choose to collect your poster from CPS, or you can have it delivered to a department through the internal post. Just mark the order form appropriately.

Please note, if you are not paying with a University project code, we are now cashless and only accept credit or debit cards or online payments via an email link we provide. Please allow up to 5 working days for your poster to be printed, standard turnaround is 3 working days. If you are in a hurry for your order, please give us a ring on 0118 378 8085 and we will try to accommodate your request, but during busy periods this may not be possible.

The Print Workshop shares a building with the Department of Typography & Graphic Communication, which is building number 21 on the Whiteknights campus map. You can collect
your poster from room C3b, TOB2 shown on this map of our location.

If you have any questions, please email posters@reading.ac.uk or call the CPS office on 0118 378 8085.