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Department of Computer Science

Technical Services and Support

Printing Posters

How To Print Posters To Artisan Poster Printer

 
This document explains how to print posters  to a large format printer equipped with 36″ wide roll paper.
Important Notes:
  1. Before you print, make sure your document is set to the actual paper size you want to print.  Preview your poster in PDF so you know you are getting the correct quality when printing in  large size paper. Printing 8.5 x 11 document on a 36×48 paper by scaling up will give you a poor quality output.
  2. Poster printer often runs out of ink or paper.  
  3. Give yourself ample time to print the poster especially if you have never printed a poster before. We do not print anything for users, you must print your poster yourself.

Follow steps below to setup the poster printer on your computer.

Step 1. Download Poster Printer Driver

Before you can print to Artisan, our poster printer,  you will need to get HP DesignJet Z9 Postscript driver. We only support printing using Postscript driver.  If you need a driver, you can use an older driver. Select Z9 44 PS or Z3200 44 PS or Z6800 44 PS driver to use with our Designjet Z9 44 printer.

Step 2. Setup Printers for your Operating System

Depending on your Operating System, the steps are different. Please follow your guide for your specific OS.

WindowsOS 10/11
A. Setup Printer Queue on your Windows OS for artisan.

There are 2 supported methods to print from WindowsOS that the printserver will accept. You may pick either method. Make sure the queue name is set to artisan.

B. Setup PaperSize for a POSTER Printer

Before you can print to artisan, you need to make sure that your printer driver is set up to print to the right paper size. This is a common mistake on printing to artisan. By default all printer drivers is set to Letter size paper and not the 36 inch wide paper size installed on artisan.

    1. Select Property of the artisan printer queue you just created. This will open the property window of Artisan.
    2. Under Paper/Quality look at Paper Options section and set the correct paper size. The printer has 36″ wide roll paper and you should set your paper size according to your document you are printing and must not be set to Letter.

    3. In the advanced tab, Look under Paper/Output -> Paper Size and select a size that fit your image. If you don’t see it, click on the Custom icon to modify the your paper size and you can set your own size as shown here. In this example, the paper size is set to 14 x 30″
      set paper size
C. Set the Printing Option for Your Poster

In this example, we will use use Acrobat Reader version 9 and up to print the PDF file. In general, it is a good idea to convert whatever you are trying to print to PDF first before printing a poster size of it. This will give you a chance to review the poster before you print it.

    1. Open your PDF file you are trying to print. Under File menu, select Print. This will open a Print dialog as shown below. Make sure that you have the Artisan Printer selected as your printer.
    2. Set how you want the print out to print. By default, it will Shrink to Printable Area. This means, if your print out is bigger than 36×60, it will shrink it to fit the paper. If your document is smaller than the available paper, it will print whatever you have in the 36×60 inch paper. You should play with the available options to see if it is what you want to print.There are other Options you can try. For example, Fit to Printable Area and the effect can be seen in the preview window.
    3. Make sure that the width of the paper is 36 inches .
    4. Make sure that the Height of the paper is 60 inches.
    5. Make sure you set a margin of at least 0.7inch or 18mm on all sides to avoid clipping.
    6. Notice that based on your adjustment, the zoom value changes. It is important to note that if your original document is small, zooming the document could result in poor quality printout unless you use high resolution bitmaps
      .
    7. Pay attention at the Preview window which shows how your document fit in the paper available on the printer.
    8. When you are satisfied with the preview, click the OK button to send the print job to the printer. Note that normally a whole page on the poster printer takes about 20 to 30 minutes, depending on complexity of and size of your document.
MacOS
  1. Download and install DesignJet driver 
  2. Folow Setting Up Printer Queue on MacOS X 10.x Operating Systems to setup the poster printer. Make sure you select DesignJet Z9 44 PS driver instead of Generic Postscript Printer. Make sure the queue name is set to artisan as shown below
  3. Choose or Set the correct paper size under More Settings. By default it is set to Letter or 8.5″ x 11″. The poster printer has 36″ wide  paper and can print at any length. Most people forget this step or make mistakes on paper size resulting a letter size image printed on 32×60″ paper.
  4. If the paper size does not exist, you can create  your own size. See 2 Ways to Change the Default Print Size on a Mac. You can create any variety of sizes according to your poster size need as shown below.
    custom papersize
  5. Preview your job before printing. Make sure the preview is correctly showing correct print size on correct paper size.
Linux OS
  1. Choose Artisan as your printer. If you are using your own computer, follow instruction Printing on Linux to setup your computer to print to our printers.
  2. Choose or Set the correct paper size. By default it is set to Letter or 8.5″ x 11″. The poster printer has 36″ wide  paper and can print at any length. Most people forget this step or make mistakes on paper size resulting a letter size image printed on 32×60″ paper. If you are using Gnome you can set new paper size via menu: Print/Page Setup/PaperSize: Manage Custom Sizes.  You can create any variety of sizes according to your poster size need as shown below.

  3. Preview your job before printing. Make sure the preview is correctly showing correct print size on correct paper size.
 
Printing Recommendations
 
Always Print from a PDF
  • We recommend creating the poster as a PDF file before printing it. This will allow you to preview the poster, and avoid idiosyncrasies in the many composing programs.
  • If you need a freeware PDF writer for WindowsOS, try BullZip.
  • If you are on a MacOS X, MacOS has built in ability to Save as PDF. You see this option in the print window.
Always Give Yourself More Time
  • Setup and learn how to print a poster days before you need it. 
  • Do not wait until the last minute before printing your poster.
  • Murphy’s Law often strikes on poster printing as many have learned in the past. Example problems:
    • Poster printer wont print because the ink or head expired. This requires you to go to the printer to accept the fact that you are using expired supplies and release the job. We do not replaced expired supplies.
    • Supplies may run out or need to be reordered and no one is around to help you.
    • Your job refused to print because of incorrect setup.
    • You are not familiar with how to print to large paper size.
    • Poster printer is jammed.
    • Someone ejected the role paper which takes a long time and very hard to put back.
    • Poster printing is slow. Others may also have the same deadline as you are.
    • Etc.

 

This concludes instruction on poster printing.

For help with our systems or If you need immediate assistant, visit contact the Operator on Duty at CoRE 235 or call 848-445-2443. Otherwise, see CS Helpdesk. Don’t forget to include your NetID along with descriptions of your problem.