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(The following guide uses a 36"x48" poster printed on a 36" wide roll as an example to illustrate the printing process. The settings indicated here allow the short edge (i.e. 36" side) to come out first from the plotter. If you print 48"x54" poster, you would need to load 60" paper, then adjust the settings accordingly to allow 54" edge come out first in order to save paper and reduce poster cost.)
- Load your PDF file on any Mac station 11 and open it with Preview.
- Make sure your poster looks correct in Preview.
For an example of a poster that looks wrong in Preview, go skip to step 119. - Go to File > Print. Make sure the printer is set to dmc-plotter.
- Portrait orientation should always be selectedMake sure Auto Rotate is selected.
- Choose Manage Custom Size… under Paper Size drop down menu.
- Click on + to add a Custom Paper Size, then change name from "Untitled" to your poster's dimensions -- 36"x48" in this example.
- Input your poster width and height in inches. Note that with portrait orientation Auto Rotate selected in step 3, the width of the poster should be 36" in this case, and 36" paper should be loaded on the plotter. Note that the width is the edge that comes out first from the plotter; the height is how far along the paper roll you are printing.
- Choose User Defined under Non-Printable Area and make sure to leave 0.5 in for top and 0.25 2 in margin for all other sides. Click on OK.
Refer the following screenshot.If your poster has no- For posters without margins on all the four sides, refer to the following screenshot for a final check before sending your print job to the plotter. In the following example, the poster is printed at
- 98% scale to have the entire poster plotted.
- For posters with 0.5 inch margins on all the four sides,
- instead of Scale to Fit and Print Entire Image at
- 98%,
- input Scale 100%, then Click on Print button. Your poster will be printed in its design size at 100% scale.
- A poster without margins and a poster with margins
- An example of a poster that looks wrong in Preview: The light gray color in the background in the image copied below shouldn't appear. Don't print from Preview if the errors on the poster are so obvious and visible.
- The poster looks right when opening in Acrobat (i.e. no light gray background color appears.). Print from Acrobat instead of Preview.
Printing from Adobe Acrobat
Note: - A 48""x36" poster in landscape orientation is used in this illustration and a 36" paper/canvas roll is loaded.
1. Open the PDF poster file with Adobe Acrobat on station 11.
2. Rotate your poster 90 degree so that the poster is in portrait orientation.
3. Go to File -> Print...;
4. On the Print window, click on Page Setup...;
5. Click Yes on the popped-up Page Setup dialog window.
6. On the Page Setup window, Format for: dmc-plotter, Paper Size - Custom Paper Sizes, make sure your Paper Size is set up as shown in the image below:
7.
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Printing a Poster that is in PowerPoint format
(The following guide uses a 48"x36" poster printed on a 36" wide roll as an example to illustrate the printing process. Don't print the poster that is in PowerPoint format directly from PowerPoint since the poster won't print right. Instead, convert the PowerPoint file to a PDF file, then print the converted PDF file from Acrobat. )
- Open the PowerPoint file in PowerPoint;
- Go to File-> Save As..., choose PDF for format, then click Save button;
- Ask the author of the poster to double check the PDF file to ensure the format and layout is not messed up during the file conversion process;
- Open the converted PDF file in Acrobat;
- Acrobat -> File -> Print,
- printer name: dmc-plotter; page scaling:page scaling: fit to printable area; auto-rotate and cent is checkedr;
- Page Setup..., Format for dmc-plotter; Paper size: 36"x48"; Orientation: portrait; - then click OK
- then click OK button on the print page to print. On the Print window,the preview of the poster is in landscape orientation.