Creating Posters with MS PowerPoint

Required Software: Microsoft Office. For complete software compatibility lists, follow links at the end of this post.

MS PowerPoint is a very convenient tool to create and print posters. PowerPoint has all the features you need to create a very attractive and informative poster. It allows you numerous options related to changing the poster theme, background colors, adjusting the tone and harshness of different colors as well as easily changing poster dimensions. The following blog post will help you get started on effortlessly creating a new poster and understanding the basics behind poster design. Please note that this blog uses MS PowerPoint 2008 (the Mac version) so if you have a different version of PowerPoint, commands might be located at slightly different locations.

First of all, you want to get the dimensions of the poster set. Go to File –>Page Setup.

You will now be greeted with a menu that looks like the screen shot below. Pay proper attention to the dimensions of the poster, especially to the orientation. Landscape and Portrait modes are clearly highlighted in the menu.

Next, choose a suitable background for the poster.  Go to Format (located on main toolbar) –> then select Slide Background.

As you can see there are different options present. Use the Gradient sub menu to customize tone/opacity and particular shade of color whereas Picture allows you to insert an image as the background.

In order to insert Text Boxes, go to Insert –> TextBox. Please note that every textbox is treated separately so you can move and adjust them accordingly. You can change the font size of the text by going to Format –> Font. You will be presented with a menu that allows great customization over font type, color and size.

Inserting pictures is very easy as well. Just go to Insert –> Picture. You will now be able to add any picture located in your computer. Just like with textboxes, each picture is treated separately so you can individually move, edit and re-size the picture.

Creating posters on PowerPoint is a very easy and intuitive process. PowerPoint allows you almost all the poster editing tools more advanced software (like Photoshop) give you without complicating things too much. The most helpful aspect of the poster creating and editing process is that each individual text box and picture can be moved, re-sized and edited on its own.

Follow these links for complete software compatibility lists.