[PLUG] Posters (resolved)

Keith Lofstrom keithl at gate.kl-ic.com
Sun Feb 17 08:31:03 UTC 2013


A few weeks ago, I asked on the list about where to get posters
printed, and what tools to use to make them.  One of us has a
36 inch wide format HP printer, and we spend a pleasant wednesday
evening getting GIMP to print one set of posters.  I ran off
another set (as backup) at Orifice Depot today - that cost $36
for 18 square feet.  A lot cheaper than Kinkos, and that business
in Beaverton (who shall remain nameless) promised 3 days for sure,
but did not deliver in five.   My complements to Adam at the 
Cedar Hills Orifice Depot.

For tools, I originally set out to use Scribus - but that is
a workflow tool that assumes correct input text, without math.
Next I tried LyX, built on LaTeX, but there aren't any poster
templates for that.  Finally, I dived down into LaTeX using
the sciposter class, knocked out first pass posters plus
illustrations in a week (some illos took a day each), then
started to tweak. 

It took a couple of passes.  It is amazing how some mistakes
are invisible on the screen, but glare at you in 24 point text. 
Look at the PDF attachment at http://server-sky.com/Brown2013

Since I grew up with troff, and use TeX format for equations
on my wiki, LaTeX wasn't difficult to learn.  A great book is
Kopka and Daly, "A Guide to LaTeX".  I got the second edition
at Goodwill books online for $3, and the fourth edition is 
probably even more marvelous.  

Other notes:  TAP plastic sells three inch by two foot transparent
plastic tubes with endcaps for $7.50, good for strips of poster
and presumably good for getting them through airport security.

Also at O.D., they have Lexar S73 "USB3" thumb drives cheap.
I bought a 64GB for $40.  They apparently aren't as fast as 
most USB3 drives, and some folks have suffered failures with
them - from the sounds of the complaints, these may not do
erased sector recovery well.   Time will tell.

Keith

-- 
Keith Lofstrom          keithl at keithl.com         Voice (503)-520-1993



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