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Environmental & Plant Biology
Mailing address: Porter 315

Environmental & Plant Biology Poster Printer Policy and Instructions

for HP Designjet Z5200

Policy

The Environmental and Plant Biology poster printer can be used for undergraduate classes and research endeavors within the department.

Posters must be reviewed and approved by your advisor or a PBIO faculty member prior to printing. Email your adviser a request for approval to print your poster, cc Eileen (delehant@ohio.edu), and ask that your adviser "reply all" with their with consent. Eileen will release your poster for printing once she receives email approval from your advisor. She will email you back to let you know that the poster has been released. While Eileen will try to release your poster immediately following adviser approval, plan for at least one business day between initial email and printing.

Before you print

The poster printer is located in Porter Hall 410. Poster printing jobs can be submitted from any computer that has the proper drivers installed.

The driver disc is located in Porter 313 (the supplies room) in the top drawer of the filing cabinet. Operating systems that are compatible with the HP DesignJet Z5200 are listed below.

Installing poster drivers - Windows

Before installing drivers, make sure that you are connected to the OHIO University network.

  1. Once the driver disc is inserted, select Software Installation.
  2. Next, select the Express Network Install option.
  3. The software will automatically locate the IP address of associated printers. When printers are located, make sure IP address 132.235.146.4 is selected.
  4. Once the printer is selected, the software will finish installation and prompt you to restart your computer. You can restart at a later time, but you will not be able to print until the computer has been restarted.

Installing poster drivers - Mac (not recommended)

While the HP Designjet Z5200 printer is compatible with a range of Mac operating systems, the driver on the disc in Porter 313 only supports MacOS versions 10.7-10.11. If you are working from a different operating system, you must install the compatible HP Designjet Mac PostScript Driver from HP support.

While this driver will allow you to print, it is a ?basic driver? and limited in function compared to the driver disc in Porter 313. If you have a Mac that is incompatible with the driver disc (MacOs 10.12+), it is highly recommended that you print from a PC in another lab.

Before You Print

Ensure that your PowerPoint slide or pdf document is sized accordingly before adding content or printing. If poster size is adjusted after content is added, content will need to be scaled and edited to fit the proper dimensions (this can be time consuming).

Posters will be printed on 42? wide, gloss paper. Posters can be smaller than but must not exceed 42? W x 50? L. Posters over the size limit will print with content missing.

Adjusting PowerPoint slide size

  1. On the Design tab of the PowerPoint toolbar, click on Slide Size and select Page Setup
  2. A dialog box will appear on-screen. Under the ?Slide sized for:? drop-down menu, select Custom. Next, input the desired slide dimensions ensuring that units are in inches (in).

Adjusting PowerPoint slide orientation

  1. For PC users, poster orientation (i.e. landscape or portrait) can be selected through the same dialog box as in step 2.
  2. For Mac users, select Options at the bottom of the Page Setup dialog box. A new dialog box will open where you can choose the desired orientation.

Poster Don?ts

  1. Don?t use a dark background (color or picture). Ink is very expensive, and we have to ensure there is enough for the entire department. Posters with excessively dark backgrounds will be rejected during final printing.
  2. Don?t use a PowerPoint template. The HP Designjet Z5200 is not optimized to print templates. While the template may look normal on-screen, there are often hidden boxes and characters that place white boxes over text and images. These boxes are not visible until the final print preview.
  3. Don?t leave empty text boxes. Like templates, empty text boxes can cause white boxes to appear. Click control (PC) or command (Mac) and the A key to highlight all boxes on the slide. Delete any empty boxes.
  4. Don?t overlap text boxes. Make sure text box boundaries don?t extend onto other areas of the slide (i.e. onto other boxes/figures/shapes). This can lead to text/images being cut-off by the overlapping boxes.
  5. Don?t copy and paste images from the web or other documents. This can also lead to white boxes during final printing. Download and save all images to your computer then insert them into your slide using the Insert tab on the PowerPoint toolbar.

    This is especially true for university logos. Official university logos and rules of use can be found here.

Poster Printing Instructions

  1. Select the HP Designjet Z5200 printer from the Printer drop-down menu and click on Printer Properties.
  2. The only settings to modify are located under the Paper/Quality tab of the Printer Properties dialog box. Leave paper source as Printer auto select. For Paper type select Photo Gloss/Semi-Gloss/Satin Paper.
  3. Ensure that the correct orientation and the ?Show preview before printing box? are selected. If you hit print without selecting ?Show preview before printing?, your poster will be sent to the print queue without showing you a final print preview. This could lead to unknown white boxes printing on your poster.
  4. Next, click Custom under Paper Options, and in the new Custom Paper Size dialog box insert your poster dimensions. Check that the correct units are selected. Under ?Name?, give your custom size a corresponding title (e.g. Sternberger_EXPO18) and click save followed by OK.
  5. You are now ready to view your final print preview. After clicking the Print button, another ?Print Preview? window will open. Toggle between the ?Whole Page View? and ?Detailed View? settings to check for white boxes and formatting errors. Your poster will print EXACTLY as seen on the Print Preview window.
  6. If your poster is ready to print, select Print on the Print Preview window. Your poster will be placed in the queue for faculty approval and Eileen Shultz to release to the printer.
  7. If errors are found in Print Preview, see the troubleshooting steps below.

Troubleshooting

  1. If you followed the 'Poster don?ts' instructions and still have white boxes appear in the final print preview, use the Whole Page or Detailed View to locate any figures or text boxes that are approximately the same size (width/height) as the white box(es).
  2. Once potentially problematic text boxes and/or figures are located, highlight them and use the ?Send to Back? feature located under Arrange on the PowerPoint Home tab.
  3. If white boxes are still present, try highlighting all of the text boxes and figures that are covered by the white boxes and use the ?Bring to Front? feature, also located under Arrange on the PowerPoint Home tab.
  4. This can be a very time-consuming process. For posters with multiple white boxes or boxes that don?t disappear after using Send to Back and/or Bring to Front, it is recommended that the author delete all images/figures and reinsert them using the Insert tab on the PowerPoint toolbar.
  5. If all else fails, you may have to remake your PowerPoint slide from scratch ensuring that you follow the guidelines and instructions highlighted in this manual.

Supported Operating Systems and associated versions that are compatible with the HP Designjet Z5200 poster printer:

Windows

  • Windows 10 (32-bit)
  • Windows 10 (64-bit)
  • Windows 8.1 (32-bit)
  • Windows 8.1 (64 bit)
  • Windows 8 (32-bit)
  • Windows 8 (64-bit)
  • Windows 7 (32-bit)
  • Windows 7 (64-bit)
  • Windows Vista (32-bit)
  • Windows Vista (64-bit)
  • Windows XP (32-bit)
  • Windows XP (64-bit)
  • Windows 2000
  • Windows Server 2016
  • Windows Server 2012
  • Windows Server 2012 R2
  • Windows Server 2008 R2
  • Windows Server 2008 W32
  • Windows Server 2008 x64
  • Windows Server 2008 Small Business
  • Windows Server 2008 Itanium
  • Windows Server 2008 Foundation Edition
  • Windows Server 2008 Essential Business
  • Windows Server 2003

Mac

  • Mac OS 10.13
  • Mac OS 10.13
  • MacOS 10.12
  • MacOS X 10.11
  • MacOS x 10.10
  • MacOS X 10.9
  • MacOS X 10.8
  • MacOS X 10.7
  • MacOS X 10.6
  • MacOS X 10.5
  • MacOS X 10.4

*Linux and Unix operating systems are also compatible. Drivers can be downloaded from HP support.