Tips From Our Designers on Research Posters!

We've been printing posters from PowerPoint for nearly 15 years, and we were trained by the creators of PowerPoint. That gives us a unique understanding of how to make a great poster, and how to do it easily. Our graphic design team members gathered some tips on common problems with PowerPoint files to help make your poster making experience easier.

Tip #1 – Create your PowerPoint on one platform and one version. Switching back and forth between PC and Mac, or even moving between multiple versions of PowerPoint can cause a number of problems, such as:

a) Text reflowing and flowing out of boxes
b) Images dropping out of boxes
c) Fonts and symbols can change or disappear

If you and a colleague are stuck with a Mac-PC interchange, we suggest you do all the design on one machine and send pdf files to the other person for proofing.

Tip #2 – When designing your poster and resizing images, always remember to hold down shift key while dragging the image from the corner. This will keep your images in the same proportions. If your people or pictures start to look scrunched, be sure you are holding down the shift key.

Tip #3 – Sizing: The default setting on your PowerPoint is “onscreen show” which is 7.5” x 10” and scales up to a 36” x 48” proportionally. However, if you want something bigger than a 36” x 56” you must set it up at half-size due to the limitations of the program, i.e. a 48” x 60” would become a 24” x 30” which we will print at 200%. Or you can use one of our handy templates.

Tip #4 – Stick with Times New Roman, Arial, and Symbol for fonts. These fonts are installed by default on both PC and the Mac, and Symbol has nearly all the Greek characters you'll need. If you have a stylish font on your computer, and one of your collaborators does not, he will be totally confused by your poster because his computer will substitute Times New Roman for the font you used. It will change the text box sizes and cause all sorts of goofiness!

If you have gotten a template from a colleague, you may not have a font they used on it. To check, go to Home> Replace>Replace Font in PowerPoint 2007, and Format>Replace Fonts for PowerPoint before 2007. The drop down Replace Fonts box will show you what fonts are used in the PowerPoint document, and if there's a question mark in front of it, that means your document uses a font that is not installed on your computer.

Remember that we are always here to help. Our phone support is free at 800-590-7850.

Wallpaper We Are Proud Of!

More and more people are buying our custom printed wallpaper! Here are two a fun jobs we did recently. On the right, a customer wanted to put up wallpaper of historical company photos in a sales room. They are very pleased with the results! Below, a design studio wanted to jazz up their office space.



Our vinyl wallpaper is installed just like any other wallpaper, except that it is not pre-pasted, because the paste would gum up our printing equipment. We stock wallpaper with a suede-like surface texture that reduces glare from overhead lighting, as you can see on the photo.


People often ask "How do I put the wallpaper up?" To hang your custom printed wallpaper just use a premium quality heavy-duty clear pre-mixed adhesive. Apply the recommended adhesive to the back using either a pasting machine or a paint roller. Whether you are a novice or a pro, it goes up easily!

Big Checks? We can do that!

At MegaPrint Inc. we print lots of big checks! They are a great way to recognize a contributor, and newspapers love to publish them. We can create special designs to include company logos, special backgrounds, watermarks, and we have even made big gift certificates! Here are a few examples of big checks we have made.

Remember that custom sizes are not a problem for us. If you don’t see the size you want on our site, just give us a call 800-590-7850 or email us, and we will be happy to give you a quote and take your order over the phone.






We can laminate your check with gloss plastic, and you can then use dry-erase markers on it. Order a blank big check, and use it over and over again!

How We Operate

MegaPrint Inc. has been around for almost 15 years. We have printed tens of thousands of research posters, trade show booths, banners, life size cutouts, and much more.

There is a great deal that goes on behind the scenes of an online, wide format print shop. It all starts at the order desk, where your orders are received and assigned to a graphic designer for review. We have eight graphic designers in-house that look at every single file we print, to check for layout errors and color issues. If we see a problem, we'll call you to work things out. Our promise is that you'lll get something that is right.

Your print then goes to our finishing department, where they handle cutting out those life size cutouts, mounting, and laminating. Last but not least our vinyl department does solvent printing of banners and wallpaper. Solvent printing is waterproof and stable for 3-5 years in sunlight.

Each of us play a part in getting your print out the door fast and looking great! From the sales desk, to the shipping department where Cindy and Joyce make sure your prints are getting shipped to their proper destination, we treat each order as if it were the only one in-house. Just take a look at what others have to say about the work we do.

Election Day- Yay!

The presidential campaign lasts a long time here in New Hampshire, and boy are we going to be glad when all the attack ads are over! Hopefully we'll have 6 months or a year of rest before it starts all over again.

One of the most fun jobs we've done in years was life size cutouts of all the presidential candidates, which we did for a photo shoot by a major magazine. Here's a picture of them before we shipped them. We made an extra of Barack Obama, and he still lurks at the back of the shop. It gives me a start when I forget he's back there!

It really is pretty fun having the first in the nation primary, and many of us have had the chance to meet several of the candidates. I had a nice talk with Bill Richardson this time, and got to ask John McCain a question at a town hall meeting four years ago.