Traveling Light With Your Poster: Tips and Tricks

If you are a student, a postdoc, or a researcher, you are familiar with this problem – you need to go to a conference where you have to present a poster. Usually, there are three solutions – travel with the poster in a poster transport tube, print on-site, and print the poster on fabric and pack it in the suitcase. The first one is sometimes not an option if you don't want to mess with the tube; the second one is not always available, and the third one is more expensive. What if you want to travel light and don't want to compromise the quality? Check this Instructable for the fourth option.

*) The poster itself. The paper type doesn't matter. If it's printed out using a jet printer, make sure it's dry before doing anything to it.

*) The A4-size box (preferable) or an A4 folder. Ideally, the box should be 1cm thick to avoid sharp creases, which are difficult to flatten out.

*) Two rubber rings or a piece of Scotch tape to hold the poster roll (when it comes to it).

*) A sponge (or just a piece of cloth or tissue).

*) A big table or an empty (and clean!) space on the floor.

To achieve a good result, both folding and unfolding steps are important. I did not invent the wheel here, but I searched for and tested the good techniques, and here I summarize them.

So, let's start with the folding. As we know, A0 is equal to 4x4=16 A4 sheets, and there are a number of ways to fit A0 to A4, but there are not too many ways that have a small number of sharp creases, which are difficult to flatten out. In the first picture, I show the problem using the poster I saw once, and our goal is to minimize the number of this kind of creases. The folding approach explained in the following series has only 3 sharp creases; the other ones are more or less closer to folds. For demonstration purposes, I used A4, which I folded to A8 in the series of pictures above, but the principle remains the same. Let's imagine that we've split the poster to 16 individual A4-sized sheets and numbered them A1 through A16, whereas the reverse side of the poster is labeled B1 through B16; the numbers correspond to each other, so that if we flip the A1 corner, we will see B1, and if we flip the A16 corner, we will see B16.

*) So, let's put the poster in portrait orientation and fold it in half along the horizontal line, making a sharp crease with the back (!) of your hand. You will get an A3 size sheet with the printed side hidden in the middle.

*) Then we unfold it and fold each half (1-8) and (9-16) again in halves, making another two sharp creases.

*) Now we fold it again along the horizontal line, creating a long sheet of 4 x A4 elements.

*) Now we have to fold it to A4, and at this step, we don't want to make sharp creases, so we fold it in half, and then we make another two folds to get a W-shaped folded sheet (see the last picture in the series).

*) Put it into the packing box or folder, then to your suitcase or backpack, and travel hassle-free.

Now we have to flatten out the poster. In the ideal case, you should borrow an iron from the reception of your hotel, but it will also work without an iron, with slightly worse results.

*) Take the poster out of the box, unfold it, and put it on the table or on the floor, face down.

*) Take a sponge or a tissue and slightly dampen it.

*) Gently dampen the creases to release the stress of the paper.

*) Let it sit for a while if you didn't get an iron or iron it through a sheet of paper if you've got it.

*) Roll up the poster and secure it with Scotch tape or rubber rings.

*) Carry the roll to the conference venue and pin it to the board.

If you followed these steps, you'll get something similar to what you see in the final picture - the creases are somewhat traceable, but one has to look for them.

That's it, thanks for reading :)