Building an Academic Poster in PowerPoint

A poster is not just a written report on a large page. It is a visual summary that should help viewers understand your work quickly and clearly.

Good poster design helps you:

• communicate key information clearly and quickly
• use headings, images and charts to guide the reader
• present your work professionally in coursework, research or conference settings

Poor poster design can make your work harder to read, harder to follow, and less effective.

Good poster design is also part of making your work accessible. Text size, contrast, reading order, image quality and PDF export all affect how usable the final poster is. For more guidance, see Accessibility in Office Documents.

Set the poster size before you add content. Changing the slide size later can distort text, images and layout.

Always check your assessment brief for the required poster size and whether you need to submit your poster digitally, print it, or both.

Some UK academic posters are set up as A0, either portrait or landscape, but this is not always required. A0 is 841 × 1189 mm. Abertay campus printers in the Library support A4 and A3 printing only, in colour or black and white. They do not support large-format poster printing such as A1 or A0.

If your assessment requires a large printed poster, you will need to arrange external printing and allow enough time before the deadline. Large-format printing may need to be booked in advance. If you need general advice on where to get a large poster printed, ask sez@abertay.ac.uk

As a rough guide for an A0 poster:

• title: around 72pt or larger
• section headings: around 36–48pt
• body text: around 24–32pt

These are only rough starting points. The final poster should be readable from at least a metre away, and your assessment brief or conference guidance may specify different requirements.

Before sending your poster for printing, export it as a PDF and check that the size, layout, images and text all look correct. If you are using an external printer, ask them what file requirements they have. This may include file format, page size, image resolution and colour settings.

If you need to submit or print your poster as a PDF, see Understanding File Types and Formats.

Watch out for these common poster-design mistakes.

• Not setting the poster size at the start. Changing the size later can distort text and images.
• Assuming large posters can be printed on campus. Abertay campus printers support A4 and A3 only. They do not support large-format posters such as A1 or A0.
• Fonts that are too small. Poster text needs to be readable from a distance.
• Low-resolution images. Images that look fine on screen may print blurry or pixelated.
• Crowded or cluttered layout. Too much text or too many images make posters hard to scan.
• Poor alignment. Misaligned text boxes, images or columns make the poster look messy.
• Weak colour contrast. Poor contrast makes content harder to read and harms accessibility.
• Too much text. Posters should summarise key points rather than reproduce long paragraphs.
• Forgetting to check the exported PDF. Problems often appear when exporting to PDF or viewing the poster at full size.

Check that: