Designing a Poster in LaTeX

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LaTeX provides the option of being able to make posters. This can be useful for academics who often present posters at conferences in order to share their research. In this post, we will go through the development of a poster using LaTeX.

First, we will setup the preamble and title of the poster. The document class is “tikzposter” with a1paper and size 25pt font. We will use the “graphicx” package for inserting images, the “lipsum” package for dummy text, and the “multicol” package to divide the poster into columns. The theme we are using is “Rays” and is one of many available themes.

Before we begin the coding it will be beneficial if you see what the final product looks like.

1

This poster has two columns and a block along the bottom. The column 1 to the left has two blocks A and B. Block A has an inner block. In column 2, we have a block with a picture in it.

Coding

Next, we begin the document and insert the code for the title. Below is the code followed by what are document look likes so far.

\documentclass[25pt,a1paper]{tikzposter} %size is 84cmX120cm
\usepackage{graphicx}
\graphicspath{{YOUR DIRECTORY HERE}}
\usetheme{Rays} %theme of poster design
\usepackage{lipsum} %for dummy text
\usepackage{multicol}
\begin{document}
\title{This is Amazing}
\author{ERT Blogger}
\maketitle
\end{document}

1.png

Creating Columns

How you design the poster is up to you but in our example, we are going to create two columns with a horizontal block across the bottom. Column one will use 65% of the available space while column 2 will use the remaining 35%. We will not include the code for the horizontal block along the bottom yet.  For now, just look at the code and after the next step, you can copy it if you want.

\begin{columns}
%COLUMN 1
\column{.65}%use 65% of the available space for this column
%COLUMN 2
\column{.35} %last 1/3 of space
\end{columns}

Making Blocks

Inside column one, we are going to place two blocks of text called Block A and Block B. Inside each block you can design it however you want. You can even have blocks within blocks.

For Block A we will make a title, a small bit of text, a colored box with some bullets, more text, and lastly an inner-block with some math text. The \bigskip declaration provides spacing and the \lipsum declaration provides dummy text. The code is below followed by a screenshot of the current poster. This code must be placed before the \end{column} command.

\begin{columns}
%COLUMN 1
\column{.65}%use 65% of the available space for this column 
%Block A
\block{More Examples of LaTeX}{
\bigskip
You can even put stuff in colored boxes.\\
\coloredbox{\begin{itemize}
  \item Point 1
  \item point 2
\end{itemize}}
\lipsum[2]
\bigskip
\innerblock{here is some math for fun}
{\begin{center}
  $2^5+5x-\frac{2}{x} * 3= y$
  \end{center}
  }
}

1.png

Block B is much simpler and includes a title with some dummy text. The code is below.

%Block B 
\block{More Text}{\lipsum[1]}

Column 2

We will now turn our attention to column 2. This column uses the last 35% of remaining space and has a picture in it with some dummy text. Inside the column, we set up a block and include the graphic followed by the dummy text. The code is below with the image afterward. This code must be placed before the \end{column} command.

%COLUMN 2
\column{.35} %last 1/3 of space
\block{More Pictures}{
\includegraphics[width=\linewidth]{{"1"}.jpg}
\lipsum[4]
}

1.png

Final Block

We will now put a block that runs along the bottom of the poster. Just a title with some text. This code must be placed above the \end{document} command.

\block{The End}{
\lipsum[10-11]
}

1.png

Conclusion

Perhaps, you can see how cool and versatile LaTeX can be. You can make a poster for presentations that are rather beautiful and much more symmetrical than trying to draw boxes by hand using powerpoint.

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