Apache OpenOffice Community Forum

Hello, I am new to Draw and am trying to create posters for an event this week. I used backgrounds from the program, and typed text on top of it. I exported to png, pdf, jpg, and bmp, but in all cases Kinkos tells me they are too fuzzy to print as a poster. Any ideas for me to try? Thanks so much!!

In order to use an image at poster-background sizes, you have to have a very high resolution image. OOo provides some general-purpose images at resolutions that are useful for typical page sizes. For something the size of a poster, you'll have to find your own high-resolution image, or just use a solid color or gradient for the background.

In fact, you may be better off designing for a white background (i.e. no background), and then print the poster on colored stock. The print shop should be able to advise you which is the better way to go.

PS: The other thing is, you don't want to export your poster design as an image, and then send that to the printer. Export your design as a PDF, and send that to the printer. In fact, if you do that, you may get away with your current background image, depending on exactly how you're using it.

Thank you so much for the quick reply - I will make some changes to my files. I did have one other question. If I change to a high-resolution or white background is there a way to also adjust the font to print more clearly at poster size - right now it is also very fuzzy.

See my PS above. Using PDF instead of an image format will take care of the "fuzzy" text and possibly the background too.

Sorry, I just saw the PS - thanks again for your help, and I will send it as PDF to the printer.

The first thing to getting good quality output from any drawing package is to use high resolution source images. The second is to be able to export them...

PDF export has an option to set the exported image resolution; but all other graphics formats export at 90 DPI and give no option to change this. I was suprised to discover this missing feature, and found it being debated ad-nauseum at http://tools.openoffice.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=4499

However, there is an extension available that adds the required functionality from http://lippka.com/EnhancedGraphicExportDialogs.oxt

Download the file and select Tools -> Extension Manager -> Add to install it; and like magic, you can now set exported image file resolutions!

Cheers,
Graham

Another tip is to set your page size in Draw to match (or at least be close to) the printed poster size... for example, if you design a poster on A4 and then try to print on A0, the A4 sized document will have to be scaled up... the result can be fuzzy prints (think of what happens if you zoom in on a jpg image.. the more you zoom, the "fuzzier" it gets).

An excellent and easy-to-understand resource about digital graphics is http://www.scantips.com/. It was originally written for scanning but it covers all the basics and not-so-basics of whatever you'd need to know about images and image formats.