The Poster module is the research poster maker in AI for Research. It is for students and researchers with a poster session coming up: an undergraduate research day, a first conference, or a poster version of a paper that has just been accepted. You give it your paper, abstract or poster text and pick the size. It lays the content out as a one-slide PowerPoint poster, made in your browser, and gives you a tikzposter .tex file of the same poster. The poster costs 3 credits.
What it does
| You get | Details |
|---|---|
| A PowerPoint poster | One slide at A0 portrait, A1 or 48 by 36 inches landscape, with the title banner, section blocks and a results area. Open it in PowerPoint, Keynote or Google Slides to add figures and adjust the design |
| A LaTeX poster | A .tex file using the tikzposter class, with the same blocks in columns, ready to compile in Overleaf |
| Text cut to poster length | Each block is short enough to read from a meter or two away, in the order a reader scans: top-left to bottom-right |
| Placeholders for what is missing | Figures, a QR code to the full paper, logos and anything your text did not include |
The sections follow what conferences expect: a title banner with authors and affiliations, introduction, objective, methods, results, conclusions, references and contact. Results get the most space.
The three sizes
| Size | Dimensions | Where it is common | Layout that suits it |
|---|---|---|---|
| A0 portrait | 841 by 1189 mm | Many European and international meetings | Two columns, with the results figure across the full width |
| A1 | 594 by 841 mm, half of A0 | Departmental poster days, smaller meetings, printing on a standard large-format printer | Two columns, fewer words |
| 48x36 in landscape | 48 by 36 inches | Many North American conferences | Three columns, results in the middle |
Pick the size the conference states, not the one you used last time. A poster scaled from A0 to 48 by 36 inches changes shape as well as size, so its columns and font sizes no longer fit. If your conference uses another size, choose the closest one and resize the slide in PowerPoint (Design, Slide Size), or change the paper size in the .tex file's class options, before you add figures.
Making the poster readable
The module cuts text to poster length, but a few rules are worth keeping when you finish it:
- State the finding in the title. "Peer tutoring halves first-year dropout" works from across a room; "A study of peer tutoring" does not.
- Keep body text at 24 pt or more on a full-size poster, and headings at 40 to 60 pt.
- Let the results figure be the largest thing on the poster. Readers look there first.
- Aim for 500 to 800 words in total. Move the rest to a handout or a page behind a QR code.
For a section-by-section word and font budget, see the research poster template.
How it works, step by step
- Open Slides and choose Poster.
- Give it the content: paste your poster text, abstract or paper, or upload the document.
- Pick the size: A0 portrait, A1 or 48x36 in landscape. Use the size in the conference's instructions.
- Press Run. The poster is laid out in the browser and shown as a preview.
- Download the PPTX to finish it in PowerPoint, or the .tex file to finish it in LaTeX.
- Add your figures where the placeholders are. A chart from Data Lab or a methods flowchart from scientific diagrams exports as an image you can drop in.
- Check every font size at 100% zoom, export to PDF, and send the PDF to the printer.
Starting from nothing? Write the poster text first: the Poster text template in the Writing Studio gives you a blank outline for free, or a draft written from your topic with real citations. Then bring that text here for the layout.
A worked example
Example (invented for illustration): a PhD student has an accepted 6-page conference paper and needs a 48 by 36 inch landscape poster for the same conference.
- Poster, size 48x36 in landscape. She uploads the camera-ready paper. Cost: 3 credits.
- The poster comes back in three columns: introduction, objective and methods on the left, a large results area in the middle, conclusions, references and a QR placeholder on the right. Her two main findings are kept with her numbers.
- She downloads the PPTX, drops in her two result charts and the lab logo, and shortens the methods block by two lines.
- Her co-author prefers LaTeX, so she also sends him the .tex file to build an A0 portrait version for a European meeting later in the year. Since the content is the same, no new run is needed: he changes the paper size and orientation in the class options.
Total: 3 credits, inside the Free plan's 45 a month.
What it does not do
- It does not design to a brand or make figures. It places your text in a clean layout; charts, photos, logos and color schemes are yours to add.
- It does not print the poster or order a print.
- It does not invent results. Blocks with nothing to say get placeholders.
- It does not know your conference's rules on size, orientation or content. Those come first; check them before you run it.
- The .tex file uses tikzposter. If your institution has its own LaTeX poster class, copy the text across rather than expecting a match.
Who uses it
- Undergraduates presenting at a research day: see AI for college students.
- Master's and PhD students at their first conference: see AI for a master's thesis and AI tools for PhD students.
- Clinicians presenting audits and case reports at meetings: see AI for medicine.
If you prefer to build the poster by hand, copy the layouts and LaTeX file from the free research poster template. For the paper behind the poster, see the conference paper writer; for a talk, the research presentation maker builds a slide deck with speaker notes.
Learn more
Last updated 2026-11-13