What program to create large posters?

[Soundhound]

I need to create some posters for a vendor fair. One will be about 3'x6', another 2x3 or so, something like that. Using photos, backgrounds and type, etc. Can I create files for those in Pages perhaps? Or Word?

If not, I don't have InDesign or Quark, and I know those are pretty expensive, are there less expensive, good alternatives? Thanks!

 

[MisterMe]

Posters are controlled not by applications, but by printer drivers. You may use any of the applications that you named. If you have the driver for a large format printer driver then you can use your favorite application to create the poster. Better yet, you may create a custom page size with the dimensions of your prospective poster if you don't have the printer driver that you need.

 

[jimsowden]

Pages is a wonderful app to do that in (even comes with templates you can use). it's a snap to do custom page sizes, export to PDF to have somebody print.

And all that for $20!

 

[citizenzen]

I've used Illustrator for large format work. I recently did a banner that was 120' x 4' and it was scaled 1" = 1'. Any time you're working with a vendor, I'd ask them first what formats they accept, whether the artwork needs to be at-size or scaled down, and work from there.

Keep in mind that vector art is scalable, while pixel-based art is limited in how big it can enlarge and still look good.

 

[jimsowden]

I've used Illustrator for large format work. I recently did a banner that was 120' x 4' and it was scaled 1" = 1'. Any time you're working with a vendor, I'd ask them first what formats they accept, whether the artwork needs to be at-size or scaled down, and work from there.

Keep in mind that vector art is scalable, while pixel-based art is limited in how big it can enlarge and still look good.

How did you miss that he doesn't want to buy an expensive program like InDesign? Illustrator is exactly the same price.

 

[citizenzen]

How did you miss that he doesn't want to buy an expensive program like InDesign?

Because I'm a skimmer?

D- for me today.

 

[zerocustom1989]

At my school we were asked to make our 24 in.x 26 in. posters in powerpoint. Yea...

Turns out you can change the size of a slide to make it super huge. Maybe that could work? (I dont recommend since it took forever to print(though that could have been the printer, not the format))

 

[Soundhound]

Great news! I'll dive in and see how to do that. Two quick questions if I could?
1) How do you create something that big? Just drag the horizontal and vertical rulers?
2) Is there a way to make the document full size (so that I'll know how big I can go with photos etc befofre they start to break up etc) but look at the document scaled down, so I can design it.

Forgive me if these are obvious questions that will be answered quickly once I use help etc in the program.

Thanks!

Pages is a wonderful app to do that in (even comes with templates you can use). it's a snap to do custom page sizes, export to PDF to have somebody print.

And all that for $20!

 

[Soundhound]

Worked it out in Pages. Thanks all!!