Creating a research poster in PowerPoint: Free for All: Files: Creating Research Posters: All Training Topics: UITS IT Training Content Library: Indiana University

On this page, you'll learn how to create a poster in PowerPoint, including creating a new file, changing the print size of the slide, adding images and text, and exporting the finished poster as a PDF.

These instructions assume you're familiar with recent versions of PowerPoint. If you haven't worked with PowerPoint before, it's recommended that you review the content in the course PowerPoint: The Basics before starting your poster.

NOTE: The step-by-step instructions were written using PowerPoint 365 – however, the instructions should work similarly in older versions of PowerPoint.

Things to note about creating a poster in PowerPoint

PowerPoint is mainly intended for creating presentations displayed on a screen, and as a result, there are a number of things you should be aware of when creating posters in PowerPoint:

PowerPoint does not have the ability to wrap text around an image. In order to have text wrap around an image, the text will need to be broken up into a number of text boxes that are arranged around the image.
While you can create columns of text in a text box in PowerPoint, the inability to wrap text around an image means you may need to use a number of text boxes arranged around an image to emulate the appearance of a column of text.
PowerPoint offers guides and a grid that can be used to line up text and images, which can help when creating the appearance of columns on a poster.
Charts and graphs made in Excel can be directly imported or copied and pasted into PowerPoint, eliminating the need to export graphs and charts as image files before including them in a poster.
Page margins will need to be manually set using guides to make sure there's space between the poster's content and the edge of the page, to ensure none of the poster content accidentally gets cut off. (A margin of at least 1/2 inch is recommended.)

Setting up the poster file

The first step in the poster creation process is to create the poster file, and ensure that the slide is the correct size for your poster. You’ll also want to remove the existing content placeholders that are on the slide before adding content to the poster.

Open PowerPoint.
To create a new presentation, in the New section of the Home screen,
Click Blank Presentation

To begin the process of changing the slide size, on the ribbon,
Click the Design tab
To open the Slide Size dialog box, on the right side of the Design tab on the ribbon,
Click, Click Custom Slide Size…
To change the size of the slide to your desired poster size, in the width and height fields of the Custom Slide Size dialog box,
type in the desired values for the width and height of your poster
To accept the changes made to the slide size, at the bottom right of the Slide Size dialog box,
Click
To scale the existing poster content to fit on the poster,
Click

To move to the Home tab, on the ribbon,
Click the Home tab
To remove the content placeholders from the slide, in the Slides group on the ribbon,
Click , Click Blank Slide

Now the slide is an appropriate size for a poster. Before adding content to the poster, it's a good idea to display the rulers, grids, and guides to help with aligning content as you add it to the poster. These features can be turned on from the View tab on the ribbon.

NOTE: The ruler in PowerPoint works differently than you might be used to from other applications — instead of measuring from left to right, PowerPoint's rulers measure from the center of the slide out to the edges. This setting can't be changed.

To move to the View tab, on the ribbon,
Click View
To show the rulers, if desired, in the Show group on the ribbon,
Click the checkbox next to Ruler
To display the gridlines,
Click the checkbox next to Gridlines
To display guides, on the ribbon,
Click the checkbox next to Guides

Using guides to help with content layout

Guides can be used to help accomplish a number of tasks in PowerPoint. They can be used to indicate the poster's margin, or to help align text boxes in order to create the appearance of text columns. The following steps will walk through the process of adding and positioning guides on a slide.

To add a guide to the slide,
Right-Click a blank area of the slide, Point to , Click either Add Vertical Guide or Add Horizontal Guide
To reposition a guide,
Point to the guide until the cursor changes to the Move Guide cursor (), Press & Drag guide to desired location

Adding content to the poster

Here, we'll focus on two separate tasks: adding text and adding images

Adding text

To add text to a poster in PowerPoint, you'll need to copy it from the original document that contains your poster text and paste it into text boxes in PowerPoint. While PowerPoint does allow for importing text directly into a slide, the imported text is placed into the poster in a way that isn't easy to rearrange if needed. For a research poster, it's best to copy your text, one section at a time, and paste it into text boxes on the poster. Newer versions of PowerPoint allow for adding columns to text boxes, too, which can be helpful to use if you don’t have text that needs to wrap around an image.

The following video demonstrates how to add text to a poster in PowerPoint. The process demonstrated in the video is outlined in the accordions following the video.

This video will walk you through the process of adding text to a poster in PowerPoint, and also demonstrates how to arrange text around images.

Description of the video:

[music] In this video, I’ll walk you through the process of adding text to a research poster in PowerPoint. I’ll also demonstrate how to make it look like text is wrapping around an image. I’ll be starting with a PowerPoint file that’s already set to the correct size for printing, with the title already added and some guide lines set up to emulate columns and margins. My poster’s text is in a Word document, which I have open in Microsoft Word so I can copy the text and paste it into the poster. All of the poster’s text will be contained in text boxes, which can be added using the Insert tab on the ribbon. To show the contents of the Insert tab, on the ribbon, click Insert. To start adding a text box, on the Ribbon, I’ll click Text Box. Next, I’ll press and drag from the upper left corner of the first column down and to the right a little to make a text box. I’m not making it very large – because PowerPoint doesn’t allow for wrapping text around images, I’m going to add text to my poster one section at a time so I can rearrange the text as needed. If I need to make my text box larger, I can resize it later. Now that I have a text box added, I can copy the first section of text I want to add to the poster. As I mentioned previously, I have the text for my poster in a Word document, so I’ll switch to Microsoft Word so I can copy the first section of text. I’ll select the Introduction section by pressing and dragging across it to highlight it, then I'll copy it using the keyboard shortcut Control-C. Next, I’ll switch back to PowerPoint so I can paste the text I copied. I’ll click on the text box I just made to select it, then I'll use the keyboard shortcut Control-V to paste the text into the frame. I’ll repeat these steps to add additional text to the poster. If I have some sections of text that are rather long, I can break them up into multiple text boxes and move them where I need them. Once I finish placing all the text into the poster, I can style it using the Font and Paragraph sections on the Home tab of the ribbon. If I need to make text wrap around an image, I can do that using multiple text boxes. I’ll start by selecting some of the text in one text box, and cutting the selected text using the keyboard shortcut Control-X. Then, I’ll resize the text box that’s next to my image. Next, I’ll create a new text box, and I'll click inside it to make sure my cursor is in the text box. Finally, I’ll paste the text I cut from the other text box into the new one using the keyboard shortcut Control-V. To keep the original formatting for my text, I’ll click on the Paste Options button that appears at the bottom of my text after it’s been pasted. Then, in the menu that appears, I’ll click the second icon from the left, which says “keep source formatting” when I hover over it. This will keep the original formatting that I applied to the text. Now you know how to add text to a poster in PowerPoint, and how to make it look like text wraps around an image. [music]

Open the poster’s text in a text editor or word processing application,
To copy a section of the text to include in the poster,
Press & Drag to select desired text, press: Control key + C
To move to the Insert tab, on the ribbon,
Click the Insert tab
To start adding a text box to the poster, on the ribbon,
Click
To add the text box to the poster,
Press & Drag to create a text box
To add the text copied in step b to the text box, on the keyboard, press:
Control key + V
Repeat steps b-f for each section of text you want to include in your poster.

Formatting text

Text can be formatted using the Font and Paragraph groups, located on the Home tab on the ribbon.

Format section of the Home tab on the ribbon in PowerPoint.

The Font group contains tools for changing the appearance of your text, including changing the font's size and color. The Paragraph group contains tools for changing text alignment, line spacing, and for creating lists.

Adding images

Adding images to a poster in PowerPoint is also done from the Insert tab on the ribbon. Remember, when adding images to your poster, don't enlarge them after they've been placed into your poster — if an image looks too small when added to your poster, you may want to check and make sure that it's an appropriate size and resolution for your poster. For more information, read the section Changing your Image's Resolution on the page Gathering High Quality Images.

The following video demonstrates how to add images to a poster in PowerPoint, and the process demonstrated in the video is outlined in the accordion following the video.

This video walks you through the process of adding an image to a poster in PowerPoint.

To view the Insert tab on the ribbon, if necessary,
Click the Insert tab
To add an image to the poster, on the ribbon,
Click , Click This Device...
To select the image to add to your poster, in the Insert Picture dialog box,
navigate to the file you want to add, Double-Click the file to open it
To make an image smaller, if necessary,
Point to lower right corner of image, press and hold Shift key, Press & Drag corner up and to the left
To move the image to the desired location on the poster,
Press & Drag the image to a new location

Preparing your poster for printing

Once you've completed your poster, you'll want to make sure that it's saved as a PDF. This ensures that your poster will look exactly the way you want it to when it's printed, and will package all of your images, fonts, and text into one file that can be opened and printed on any computer.

In PowerPoint, you can export a copy of your poster as a PDF. This is done in the Backstage view, which is accessible when clicking on the File tab on the ribbon.

To start the process of saving the file as a PDF, on the ribbon,
Click the File Tab
To save the poster as a PDF, in the menu on the left side of the screen,
Click Save as Adobe PDF

NOTE: If you haven't saved your file recently, you may see a dialog box saying "Acrobat PDFMaker needs to save the file before continuing. Do you want PDFMaker to save the file and continue?" To continue, Click Yes.

Navigate to the folder on your computer where you want to save the PDF.
In the File Name field, if necessary, give the file a name.
To finish saving the file, in the lower right corner of the Save Adobe PDF File As dialog box,
Click Save

NOTE: If the Save as Adobe PDF option doesn't appear in the left side menu in Backstage view, Click Export, Click the Create Adobe PDF option in the Export menu, Click the Create Adobe PDF button, and then follow steps 3-5 as described previously.

Once your poster is exported, it's now ready for printing!

Creating a research poster in PowerPoint

Things to note about creating a poster in PowerPoint

Setting up the poster file

Step 1. Open PowerPoint and create a new blank presentation.

Step 2. Set the size of the slide to the size of your poster.

Step 3. Remove the content placeholders from the slide.

Step 4. On the View tab of the ribbon, select the options to display gridlines and guides.

Using guides to help with content layout

Adding and positioning guides on a slide

Adding content to the poster

Adding text

Adding text to a poster

Formatting text

Adding images

Adding an image to a poster

Preparing your poster for printing

Saving a file as a PDF