Research Poster Size Calculator
Choose a poster size and how far away your readers will stand. You get exact dimensions in inches and millimetres, type sizes for the title, body and captions, an estimate of how many words the poster can hold, and the design size and print enlargement for your slide program. Free, no sign-up, and everything runs in your browser.
Poster size
Viewing distance and text
How far away a reader stands. UC Davis suggests text and figures legible from about 5–7 feet (1.5–2 m).
Type your own size to rescale the other roles and the word budget around it.
UC Davis suggests roughly 20% text, 40% figures and 40% empty space.
Print file
A poster longer than PowerPoint allows is designed small and enlarged at the printer.
Purdue’s department guide asks for 300 dpi or more. Your print shop’s requirement comes first.
Your poster plan
48 × 36 in
Final size
1,219.2 × 914.4 mm
In millimetres
1.3333
Shape (long ÷ short side)
30 pt
Body text
Type sizes
Body text is 30 pt, from the UC Davis distance guide (never below 24 pt).
| Role | At final size | In your design file |
|---|---|---|
| Title | 106 pt | 106 pt |
| Authors and affiliations | 70 pt | 70 pt |
| Section headings | 45 pt | 45 pt |
| Body text | 30 pt | 30 pt |
| Captions and references | 23 pt | 23 pt |
Proportions follow UC Davis’s 85 : 56 : 36 : 24 : 18 point set, scaled to your body size. Purdue calls 24 pt an absolute minimum for body text and suggests 36 pt or more where you can.
Legibility guides at 6 ft
| Guide | Suggested size |
|---|---|
| UC Davis Undergraduate Research Center | 30 pt |
| Science Buddies, via Washington University’s Knight ADRC | 38 pt |
Two published university guides, which differ because they set different bars (UC Davis for legible text, Science Buddies for a minimum comfortable size). They are guidance, not a standard.
Word budget
About 582 words fit in 20% of the poster at 30 pt.
Aim for no more than 582 words — Purrington’s guide suggests 500–800. That reads in about 2.4 minutes at 238 words per minute.
The fit is an estimate from average letter widths at a 1.2 line spacing; a narrow font fits more. Fewer words almost always read better.
Printing
Design the file at the final size, 48 × 36 in.
PowerPoint accepts a slide up to 56 in (142.24 cm) a side, so this fits.
How to Use the Research Poster Size Calculator
- 1. Pick the size your conference asks for. Choose an A-series or US size and an orientation, or enter a custom width and height. Always follow the event’s instructions: boards, easels and print roll widths differ.
- 2. Enter the viewing distance. Readers usually stand an arm’s length or two away. The default is 6 feet. If you type your own body size, the other type sizes and the word budget rescale around it.
- 3. Choose a design scale. Slide programs cap the size of a slide, so a large poster is designed at half or quarter size and enlarged when printed. The calculator gives the file size, the enlargement, and the font sizes to use in the smaller file.
- 4. Copy the plan. Send the size and enlargement to your print shop, and use the pixel figure to check that your images are sharp enough at final size.
Poster Sizes: Exact Dimensions
The A-series is defined by ISO 216. A0 is 841 × 1189 mm, and every size below it is half the area: cut an A0 sheet across its long side and you have two A1 sheets, which is possible because the ratio of long to short side is √2 in every size. Markus Kuhn’s overview of the ISO paper sizes explains the system. US posters are usually specified in inches; one inch is exactly 25.4 mm.
| Size | Millimetres | Inches |
|---|---|---|
| A0 | 841 × 1189 | 33.11 × 46.81 |
| A1 | 594 × 841 | 23.39 × 33.11 |
| A2 | 420 × 594 | 16.54 × 23.39 |
| A3 | 297 × 420 | 11.69 × 16.54 |
| 24 × 36 in | 609.6 × 914.4 | 24 × 36 |
| 30 × 40 in | 762 × 1016 | 30 × 40 |
| 36 × 48 in | 914.4 × 1219.2 | 36 × 48 |
Inch values for the A-series are rounded to two decimals. Many US conferences use 48 × 36 in (36 × 48 in turned on its side) — choose landscape to get it.
Font Size by Viewing Distance
There is no standard for poster type. The calculator shows two published university guides side by side, and they disagree because they set different bars. UC Davis’s Undergraduate Research Center gives sizes that are “legible” at 6, 10, 12 and 14 feet (30, 48, 60 and 72 pt) and a set of roles: title 85 pt, authors 56, subheadings 36, body 24 and captions 18. The Knight ADRC at Washington University, quoting Science Buddies, lists the minimum comfortable size at a distance — 32 pt at 5 feet, 160 pt at 25 feet.
| Distance | UC Davis guide | Science Buddies guide |
|---|---|---|
| 3 ft | 15 pt | 20 pt |
| 6 ft | 30 pt | 38 pt |
| 10 ft | 48 pt | 64 pt |
| 14 ft | 72 pt | 90 pt |
Values between the published points are interpolated in a straight line, and values below the first point are proportional to distance. The sizes are what each guide implies for text of that importance, not a rule for body text.
To pick a body size the calculator uses the UC Davis distance figure rounded to a whole point, and never goes below 24 pt: UC Davis suggests starting at 24–36 pt for a poster, and Purdue’s department poster guide calls 24 pt an absolute minimum for body text. The other roles keep UC Davis’s proportions, scaled to your body size. At 6 feet the body is 30 pt and the title 106 pt.
How Many Words Fit on a Poster?
The calculator estimates the words the text share can hold: the poster’s area, times the share given to text, divided by the area one word takes at your body size. It assumes a 1.2 line spacing and an average letter width of half the type size, so a narrow font fits more. UC Davis suggests roughly 20% text, 40% figures and 40% empty space, and Colin Purrington’s poster guide recommends 500–800 words with one or two graphics that make sense without you. The word ceiling is therefore the smaller of what fits and 800, and the reading time uses 238 words per minute, the average silent-reading speed for non-fiction in Brysbaert’s 2019 meta-analysis.
Design Size, Enlargement and the PowerPoint Limit
Microsoft’s slide size documentation gives a maximum of 56 inches (142.24 cm) for a slide’s width or height. A 36 × 48 in poster fits at full size. A 36 × 96 in poster does not, so it is designed at half size (18 × 48 in) and printed at 200%. Every font in the half-size file is half its final size: a 106 pt title is 53 pt.
Worked Example: 48 × 36 in at 6 Feet
| Quantity | Result |
|---|---|
| Final size | 48 × 36 in (1219.2 × 914.4 mm), shape 1.3333 |
| Body text | 30 pt (UC Davis, 6 ft) |
| Title, authors, headings, captions | 106, 70, 45 and 23 pt |
| Words that fit in 20% of the poster | 582 words, about 2.4 minutes to read |
| Design at 50% | 24 × 18 in, print at 200%; title 53 pt, body 15 pt |
Frequently Asked Questions
- What size should a research poster be?
- The size your conference or department specifies — boards and print rolls vary. When nothing is specified, 48 × 36 inches is common in the United States, and A0 portrait (841 × 1189 mm) is widely used outside the United States. Check the maximum width of your print shop’s roll, too.
- What font size should I use on a research poster?
- Body text of 24–36 pt is the range UC Davis and Purdue give; Purdue treats 24 pt as an absolute minimum. Titles are much larger, around 85–110 pt, and captions a little smaller than body. Increase every size if readers will stand further back than about 6 feet.
- How many words should a poster have?
- A common recommendation is 500 to 800 words, and fewer is easier to read. Whatever the count, readers should be able to take in the poster in a few minutes, so favour figures over paragraphs and use the word estimate as a ceiling rather than a target.
- How do I make an A0 poster in PowerPoint?
- Set a custom slide size of 33.11 × 46.81 inches. That is under PowerPoint’s 56-inch limit, so you can design at full size. If you prefer a lighter file, design at 50% (16.56 × 23.41 in) and print at 200%.
- What resolution do images need on a poster?
- Pixels are the printed size in inches times the resolution you need. A 12 × 9 inch photograph at 300 dpi needs 3,600 × 2,700 pixels. Purdue’s department guide asks for 300 dpi or more, but your print shop’s requirement comes first, and a figure that looks blurry at 100% zoom will look worse on paper.