I have been busy making math posters for my classroom.  One of my colleagues saw my posters and literally went crazy over them.  I explained how easy it is to create a poster by ’tiling’ when you print.  She was simply amazed.  I have been doing it for years and really thought everyone knew how to do this technique.

I am sure many of you do know about this technique, but for anyone that doesn’t it really is pretty simple.

• Create your design on a 8.5″ x 11″ sized paper.

• Save as a PDF.  (Below is a 8.5″ x 11″ screen shot of one of my soon to be posters.)

• Choose print from the file menu when the PDF page is open.

• When the print menu opens, go down to the ’tile scale’ field.  Enter a number larger than 100.  (I find 175 is my favorite size.)  Leave overlap at 0.005.  Set ‘page scaling’ to ’tile all pages’.  I also check ‘cut marks’.   (See screen shot of print menu below.)

• You are ready to hit print.  I would recommend using card stock.

• Your poster will print out in 4 to 6 sheets depending how large your ’tile scale’ % is.  Use the cut marks to fit the pieces together just like a puzzle.  The .005 overlap will need to be trimmed on some of the pages and left on others.  This is where you will glue the pieces together.

• Laminate, and you’ve got your very own self-created poster.

My posters are currently awaiting lamination.  When I get them back, I will be sure to post pictures!