Resources | Center for Educational Excellence & Innovation

Poster Tips and Template

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Poster template: 11x17

Poster template: 36x84

Poster tips

Adapted from Tom Sandora, MD MPH

Boston Children’s Hospital

Process

To print poster, BCH Research recommends that you use phdposters.com, which has a pick-up location at the MASCO building at 375 Longwood Ave. Detailed instructions about creating posters are available for review on the phdposters.com website.
You will build your poster as a PowerPoint slide. We suggest using a 24” x 19” slide size—see the template slide above.
Once you have finished creating your poster, it is suggested that you convert the slide to a PDF before uploading, which will give you a discount at phdposters, but you can also upload the PowerPoint slide directly if you prefer. See their website for instructions.
You should prepare your poster well in advance of the poster presentation, if possible, as many people will be printing posters right before the presentation. At phdposters.com, they can generally print PDF posters for the next day after submission, and PowerPoint posters in 2 days. But check their order form for an up-to-date estimate. https://phdposters.com/new/orderform
The cost varies by size; we recommend a 48” wide X 36” high poster, which costs $54.99 when ordered as a PDF file. The poster boards for the Healthcare Professionals Education Poster Presentation are 4 feet (48”) high x 8 feet (96”) wide. (Always check what size the board will be at your conference before you print your poster!). We expect to place 2 posters per side.
You will need to pay for your poster when you pick it up; be sure to note that Boston Children's Hospital is tax exempt when you place the order: MA Taxpayer ID:11509953
If you arrange to pick up your printed poster (cheapest option), a poster tube will be provided to transport your poster.

Layout and content of poster

Think carefully about how you want your poster to be organized. This is your work and you want to display it whatever way best makes your point. The poster should be self-explanatory and understandable without a verbal explanation. Make sure the viewing sequence is clear (usually either top to bottom or left to right). Ask yourself: do the most important points stand out when I look at the finished product?
Your poster should be visually interesting—something that will grab the attention of a random person walking up and down poster aisles. A mix of text and graphics (figures, tables) is always nice. Use bright colors. Keep the background white. Do not overcrowd the poster with words.
Everything on the poster should be legible from a distance of about 3 feet. Use a font size that achieves this goal—consider 72-96 for the title, 44-54 for the author list, 32-48 for the main text, and 24-36 for data in tables. Figure legends can be in the 20s. Never use anything smaller than 14.
Use a font that is “sans-serif” (meaning it doesn’t have the extra little lines at the edges of the letters). Arial works well. Times is OK but Times New Roman is bad (also bad: Geneva, New York, Chicago).
Keep the title and author list visually separated from the main poster data. Include the logos for the hospital(s) and medical school(s) at the upper corners.
Use bullet points for most of the text. Your summary and/or conclusions sections at the end should be in complete sentences.
Avoid abbreviations, acronyms, etc. Don’t assume the viewer knows anything about your topic.
Don’t use the Tab key—instead use spaces, text boxes, and tables.
Photos or illustrations should be “inserted” rather than copied and pasted.
If you are using the BCH or HMS logos, be sure to use the official versions, which can be found here: http://www.childrenshospital.org/brand
JPG files are best for images (or flattened TIFF for Macs).
If saving your poster as a PDF for printing, be sure to save using optimized settings for image quality [choose the “Standard (publishing online and printing)” setting] and before printing, check your image quality on the PDF by enlarging to fill the screen and making sure images don’t look pixelated or blurry. Blurry image quality is the most common mistake in poster printing.
Don’t forget to include a funding acknowledgment at the end, if relevant.

Things you should bring to the poster session

Your poster! When you hang your poster, you can leave your poster tube lying under your poster board until it’s time to take the poster down. Set-up and take-down are at designated times. You also must be physically present at your poster during designated times—check the meeting instructions.
Consider printing copies of your poster (as a slide) on 8.5” x 11” paper to offer as handouts. Viewers will often request one to take home with them. Printing these in color is a nice touch. Bring about 25 copies. If you run out, ask the viewer for an e-mail address and offer to send them your poster file, if you’re comfortable doing so. You might also want to bring a manila envelope to hold these handouts (you can hang it from your poster board).
Pushpins to hang your poster are generally provided in the room where the posters are displayed, but you may want to bring extra poster puddy or push pins.

What’s it like to stand at your poster?

Viewers have different preferences—some like to just read your poster while you stand silently, others will engage you right away and ask you to explain your project. Make yourself available without aggressively bothering those who want to read through it on their own.
Resist the temptation to spend lots of time gabbing with friends of yours who are at the meeting and walking around at the poster session, at the expense of interested viewers who may want to know about your poster.
Smile a lot! Be proud of your work and enjoy the chance to tell people about what you accomplished.

Jane: Journal / Author Name Estimator

Have you recently written a paper, but you’re not sure to which journal you should submit it? Or maybe you want to find relevant articles to cite in your paper? Or are you an editor, and do you need to find reviewers for a particular paper? Jane can help!

Jane: Journal / Author Name Estimator

Center for Educational Excellence & Innovation Resources

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Adapted from Tom Sandora, MD MPH