The SNRE IT Office is equipped with an HP DesignJet large-format printer serving SNRE faculty, staff, and students. We print on 42" wide, roll feed, heavy coated inkjet paper (a bright, non-glossy surface), with a printable area of 41.6". The printer's 300 dots per inch color output combined with special-purpose paper produces high-quality output that is ideal for banners, signs, posters, and displays.

Printing costs $8.40 per linear foot.  SNRE IT no longer handles the billing for poster printing.  All charges are made against a student's printing account.  Faculty and staff must set up an ABS account backed by a shortcode in order to print.

The Poster Printing Process

Step 1:  Get funding in place

• If you are a student, everything you print will be charged to your student account.
• If you are SNRE faculty or staff, you will need to create an ABS account for color printing.  This usually takes a day or two from the time you submit the request.  Some offices already have ABS accounts set up, backed by shortcodes.  All print jobs submitted by people within these groups get charged to that shortcode.  For details, please contact SNRE IT.

Step 2: Create your poster

• Prepare your poster in your preferred application. PowerPoint, Illustrator, InDesign, and Photoshop are the most frequently used programs.
• Remember, although the plotter paper is 42" wide, the actual printable area is 41.6". One dimension of your poster (height or width) must be less than or equal to 41.6".
• When inserting images, a maximum resolution of 150 pixels per inch (ppi) is preferable. Higher resolutions will typically add to the size of your file, without noticeably improving image quality.
• Most file types are acceptable, but PDF is the preferred format for the final poster.
• Save the file to your network file space, USB flash drive, CD, or DVD.

Step 3: Submit your print job to the SNRE Poster Printer from any campus computing site, or visit the SNRE IT Services Office to print your poster

• You can print to the poster printer any time, day or night, from the campus computing site (2nd floor Dana Building) or the computer classroom (3rd floor Dana Building). Pick your poster up from the SNRE IT office between 8am and 5pm, Monday through Friday.
• If you haven't printed a poster before, you may find it useful to work with SNRE IT staff. IT staff are available to assist you with poster printing Monday-Friday, 8am-4pm in 2353 Dana.  No new jobs will be accepted after 4 pm.
• Posters are printed on a first come, first serve basis. We do not schedule poster printing.
• Your poster should be proof-read and in a finished state when you begin printing. Correcting mistakes in our office or after you have printed the poster is wasteful, expensive, and time consuming.

Step 4: View and approve a preview of your poster

• Once your poster is submitted, it will go into a print queue.  You must view a preview of it at mprint.umich.edu/poster.
• The preview will include an estimate of the poster's cost.
• If it's satisfactory, you can release the poster to print.
• Otherwise you can delete the poster and re-submit it.

Step 5: Printing

• Once you have approved the poster, it will be sent to the printer.
• Printing typically takes between 5 minutes and 15 minutes, depending on the size of the poster.
• If you will be transporting your poster outside of the building, consider bringing a poster tube with you.

Make sure to budget enough time for the poster printing process.  While most jobs take 15-20 minutes to submit, preview, and print, in some cases the process can take more than an hour.  Keep in mind that the printer may be in very high demand for several days before calss assignments are due.

Also remember that we do not accept cash, checks, credit cards, or shortcodes as payment for printing.

Other Places to Print

•   Angell Hall Computing Site (http://www.umich.edu/~sites/printing)
  • They have the same setup we have (same billing structure, same process, same printer), but they are open 24 hrs a day.
• Department of Physics (http://cats.ssu.lsa.umich.edu/posters.html)
  • Same printer we have, but they do accept payment via UM shortcode.  Posters cost $8 per linear foot.
    
• Groundworks Poster Shop (http://www.dc.umich.edu/posterprinting/posterShop.html)
  • They print on 36" glossy photo paper and charge $15 per linear foot.  They accept credit card payment and shortcodes.
• BSRB Poster Printing Facility (http://www.med.umich.edu/cdb/mil/poster_printer/index.html)
  • They print on 36" and 42" glossy photo paper.  They offer next day service for poster jobs at $15 per linear foot.  Same day orders cost $30 per linear foot.
• Kinko's (https://printonline.fedex.com/v2.2.0/?lid=fo_pol&startingPoint=printProd...)