Abstract Title (Font: Arial, bold, 14 pt.; scientific symbols should be spelled out or can be displayed using the font “Symbol.”)

Author Information (Font: Arial, bold, 12 pt.)

Abstract text (not to exceed 250 words). (Font: Arial, normal, 12 pt.; scientific symbols should be spelled out or can be displayed using the font “ Symbol.”)

Please be sure that your abstract is correct and complete before submitting it! Also make sure your name, e-mail address, and other information required on the submission form is correct.

POSTER FORMAT
IMPORTANT NOTICE! The poster website will be open to anyone in the world with Internet access! You must make your own judgement about the content of your poster. If you have unpublished, copyrightable research, you may wish to submit your poster without sensitive data.

Required File Format:
1. Online posters must be created using Microsoft PowerPoint software, using one slide only. PowerPoint is included in the Microsoft Office software package. Click here to download a Microsoft PowerPoint template to use in creating your online poster.

2. In page set-up, select “On-screen Show,” 7.5 inches high, 10 inches wide, landscape orientation.

3. When you are finished creating your slide, use the “Save As” command under the file menu and resave your document with the original file name (or a different one if you choose.) This will reduce your file size dramatically -- eliminating any unnecessary data accumulated in the file as you design your poster.

4. Final PowerPoint slide must be no larger than 5 MB! Files in the 1 - 3 MB range are much preferred. Additional tips for achieving this can be found near the bottom of this page. Your efforts to achieve this lower file size are greatly appreciated!

Text Guidelines:
1. Do not place your text as graphics files! This will be an indexed website. The text must remain separate from graphic images in order to be indexed.

2. Arial is the preferred font for your online poster. Scientific symbols should be spelled out or can be displayed using the font “Symbol.” Times or Times Roman are also acceptable, but may be more difficult to read at small size on the Web.

3. Make sure text is readable. 10 pt. is the preferred minimum size. Do not use shadow or emboss effects.

Image Guidelines:
1. Keep the file size small. This beautiful image (below, by Peter Sutovsky, MU Animal Sciences) is only 20K! The print version of the file was over 1MB, before being optimized for the Web. Software such as Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator have a “Save for Web” optimizing feature that produces a high quality image at low resolution (72 dpi).

Abstract Title (Font: Arial, bold, 14 pt.; scientific symbols should be spelled out or can be displayed using the font “Symbol.”)

Author Information (Font: Arial, bold, 12 pt.)

Abstract text (not to exceed 250 words). (Font: Arial, normal, 12 pt.; scientific symbols should be spelled out or can be displayed using the font “ Symbol.”)
2. Use GIF or JPEG file formats for images on your poster, if at all possible.

3. Do not embed text in image files (with the exception of basic labeling information on charts/graphs -- see example in Figure 1 below). Questions? E-mail lsw@missouri.edu.


Figure 1. This graph was created in Microsoft Excel and has a file size of only 12K. Text labels for graphs or charts can be saved as part of the graphic (see the words “Units” and “Time” above). More extensive text, such as this paragraph, should be created in a text box in PowerPoint, enabling your text to be indexed.

Additional Help...
Many poster authors will be able to find technical assistance in computer labs, computing or design departments on college campuses, or in the IT or graphic design areas of their organization. If you do a Web search, you'll find many "how to" sites for creating PowerPoint presentations (the excerpt below is from one of those sites) — and don’t forget PowerPoint’s online help available from the menu bar in the program.

Making Presentation Files Smaller
(From PowerPoint Tips & Tricks, A Bit Better Corporation, at http://www.bitbetter.com/powertips.htm#anchor276534.)

The most common cause of large files is the addition of large bitmaps. PowerPoint 97 compresses these bitmaps, but previous versions do not. To keep your presentations as small as you can, try reducing the resolution of your bitmaps, which will bring their size down tremendously. For viewing on screen, the bitmaps don't need to be more than 96 dpi; they won't print nicely until they're up around 150 or higher, but the screen always displays at 96 dpi, so if the primary viewing medium is the screen, there's no point in having the bitmaps be a higher resolution. Also, the bitmap format can make a big difference to your file sizes. JPEG and PNG both have good internal compression code. GIF has some, but not as good as JPEG. BMP files are the largest; TIFF files will also be very large.

Sometimes, as you're working on a presentation, you'll notice that the file seems to get bigger for no reason. To get rid of this "bloating," save the file using "File/Save As" and give the file a new name (or let it replace the original, keeping the same name.) This can reduce the file size up to 50%.