A poster is a single page item that can include text, images and a wide range of graphical effects. For public display you are likely to choose a paper size of at least A3, possibly larger if you have access to a commercial printer (schools rarely have printers that will print larger than A3).
To select printer, paper size and orientation choose File/Page Setup. Choose the Printer and Paper tab and select the printer from the list (OKI A3 Colour in IT53). Set the paper size you require (A3). Click OK and then select File/Page Setup again. This time choose the Layout tab and set the Type to Full Page.
One of the first things to set up are the margins of the poster - these are the blue lines on the document on screen.
Most printers leave a margin around a sheet of paper of up to 1cm, only commercial printers will allow 'bleeding' or printing to the edge of the page. To maximise the area of paper for your poster you should change the margins to around 1cm - you may be able to get away with 0.8cm or even less, depending on your printer (experiment!).
To change the margins choose Arrange/Layout Guides and change the Margin guides to your new values. If you do this in the middle of your work rather than at the beginning you will have to adjust the size and placement of objects in your design to match the new margins (otherwise there is no point in changing them).
To place text on your poster use the text box tool. Remember to press the F9 key to zoom in and out of the display.
To format text use the standard formatting tools such as Font, Size, Bold, Italic, and so on. Notes on choice of fonts for effective design can be found here.
Additional text formatting is to be found under Format/Character Spacing. The horizontal space occupied by text can be changed with the Scaling and Tracking options. If part of the text disappears when you change the scale then you have increased it by too much. Try entering values from the keyboard, increasing or decreasing them by one each time and clicking the Apply button until you reach the optimum setting.
The gap between certain character pairs that can overlap (e.g. 'A' and 'V') can be changed with the Kerning option.
The gap between lines can be changed using Format/Paragraph and changing the Spacing Between Lines value.
A text box is drawn at the top of the page between the blue guides and the title is typed in. The font size and face can then be changed as follows.
1. After setting the font to 48 points:
2. After changing the font from Times New Roman to Broadway (takes up more space):
3. After changing the spacing to 111% (110% didn't quite fill the space):
Any text box can be moved around the document to a new location.
We can now add other text elements including the schools (at the top of the document?), the dates, location, venue and price.
To place an image on the poster click on the Image box in the toolbox and choose one of the four options. If you are copying and pasting from a web page create an empty picture frame and then paste the image into it. The frame will adjust its size to match the image and you can then stretch and move it to the place you want it to be.
If the image is in clipart or a file or you have a scanner or camera attached to the computer then you should choose one of the other picture options.
When an image has been placed on the screen you can scale it by dragging the handles, possibly to cover the whole of the design area. You can also crop an image
One of the benefits of using a DTP program over a word processor is that items can be placed over or under each other in layers. To change the order of items choose Arrange/Order and choose one of the options to match what you want to do. Typically you will want to send an object to the back or bring it the front but in some more complex arrangements you may want to move it just one place up or down so that it is in just the right place in relation to the others.
This facility allows you to place text on top of images that you have stretched to cover large areas of your design.
In the following screen shot the margins have been adjusted to 1cm, a new text box has been added and the first text box has been moved down:
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