Introducing Our New Poster Printer

ITS has deployed a new HP Designjet Z6100 poster printer for use by our Public Printing users. The HP Z6100 offers significantly faster printing speeds, improved color fidelity and longer print life. Although users can continue to print to our HP 5000 poster printer for the time being, this printer is no longer supported by HP and will be retired when its supplies are exhausted or in case of hardware failure. For this reason, we encourage our users to follow the instructions below to install the new HP Z6100 printer.

Poster Printing

Unlike most printers, the poster printer uses rolls of paper 60 inches wide by 100 feet long. Getting the document sized appropriately and oriented in the right direction will solve most problems. If you are working from a document that was not originally intended to be a poster, you will usually need to change the size of graphics and the text as well. Often, it is simpler to start a new document from scratch.

• You must register for printing before you can you use the poster printer. Please see our Printer Registration page to do so.
• It takes time to print large format documents. Although most documents will print within an hour, due to occasionally high volume, please allow up to 24 hours for your document to print.
• You can check the status of your poster job by contacting the Help Desk.
• Although the paper is 60 inches wide, the printable area of the paper is only 59.4 inches wide. This border can be trimmed off with our paper cutter.
• Converting your document to a PDF can provide more reliable printing.

If you need assistance with any aspect of the process, ITS offers a poster consulting service for $40 an hour, 1 hour minimum.

Installing the Poster Printer

Please see our Poster Printer Installation page installation instructions for Mac OS X, Windows Vista, Windows XP and Linux.

Printing a PDF to the Poster Printer from Windows

1. Open your PDF. From the File menu, select Print.
2. In the Print window, select \\bi-printhost.beckman.uiuc.edu\poster-z6100 from the drop down list of available printers.
3. Click on the Properties button.
4. In the Properties window, select the Advanced tab.
5. Expand the Paper/Output selection and select PostScript Custom Page Size from the Paper Size: drop down menu.
6. In the PostScipt Custom Page Size Definition window enter your document's height and width.
7. From the Paper Feed Direction: drop down menu select Long Edge First.
8. Change to the Paper/Quality tab. In the Print Quality section, drag the Speed/Quality selector all the way to the Quality end. Click OK.
9. In the print window, verify that your document size is correct.
10. Click the Print button to send your document to the printer.

Printing a PDF to the Poster Printer from Mac OS X

1. Open your pdf file. ITS recommends using Adobe Acrobat Reader for printing instead of Preview.app.
2. From the File menu, select Page Setup.
3. In the Page Setup window, from the Format for: drop down menu, select HP z6100 Poster Printer.
4. In the Page Setup window, select Manage Custom Sizes from the Paper Size: drop down menu.
5. In the Custom Page Sizes window, click the "+" button to add a new paper size.
6. Double click on Untitled to name your new poster size. We suggest "width x height."
7. Enter the dimensions of your document in the Page Size: Width and Height boxes and click OK.
8. Verify that your custom size is selected in the Page Setup window and click OK.
9. From the File menu, select Print.
10. In the Print window select the HP z6100 Poster Printer.
11. Verify that the Preview indicates the correct dimensions.
12. Select Print to send your document.

Creating a PDF from PowerPoint in Windows

1. Open your Powerpoint presentation file. From the File menu, select print.
2. In the Print window, from the drop down list of available printers select Adobe PDF.
3. Click the Properties button.
4. In the Adobe PDF Settings tab of the Adobe PDF Document Properties window, change the Defualt Settings drop down to Press Quality.
5. In the same window, click the Add button to add a custom page size.
6. In the Paper Names: section give your custom size a name. We suggest "widthXheight."
7. In the Paper Size section, enter your documents dimensions. Due to the way Powerpoint orients files, it is necessary to reverse the height and width dimensions. Example: If your poster is 30 inches wide by 20 inches high, to print it correctly you must enter 20 inches for the width and 30 inches for the height.
8. Click on Paper/Quality tab. Then click on the Advanced button.
9. In the Adobe PDF Converter Advanced Options window, change the Print Quality to 300dpi, and then press the OK button.
10. Click OK to close the Properties window and then OK again to create your PDF.
11. In the Save PDF as window, name your document and save it to your desired location. The conversion process may take a few minutes.

Creating a PDF from PowerPoint 2008 on a Mac

1. From the File menu, choose Print.
2. In the Print window, click the Page Setup button.
3. In the Width and Height fields enter your documents dimensions, and click then click the Options button.
4. In the Page Setup window, set the Format for: drop down menu to HP z6100 Poster Printer.
5. In the Paper Size drop down menu, click Manage Custom Page Sizes.
6. Double click on Untitled to name your new poster size. We suggest "width x height."
7. In the Paper Size section, enter your documents dimensions. Due to the way Powerpoint orients files, it is necessary to reverse the height and width dimensions. Example: If your poster is 30 inches wide by 20 inches high, to print it correctly you must enter 20 inches for the width and 30 inches for the height.
8. Click OK to accept your custom page size. In the Page Setup window verify that the paper size is selected and click the OK button..
9. In the Print window, click the PDF button and select Save As PDF.
10. In the Save window, specify the document name and where. Click Save to create your PDF.