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Getting Your Poster Printed

Presenting Your Research

*Major updates as of August 2025. Please read carefully for new information.*

CSURF is using UNCW Printing Services to print research posters. Poster are about $49 each. We will pay the costs of printing for undergraduate researchers. Graduate students and faculty will need to find other funding sources to pay for their posters. CSURF is no longer printing posters ourselves.

For undergraduate research posters, CSURF will constinue to coordinate all print jobs. The process will look similar but there are some new (non-negotiable) rules in place since Printing Services is an official UNCW unit that provides official UNCW services.

Only posters submitted through CSURF will be paid for by us and we have the right to deny posters by graduate students or faculty, as our focus is supporting undergraduate research. Courses that assign posters as an assignment may submit an application to the Office of High Impact Practices to have the costs covered. HIPs will pay for posters for 3 courses each semester. For Fall 2025, all HIPs funds are accounted for.

Event Organizers and Instructors

Instructors and organizers of events that require students to get posters printed: Submit this application as soon as you know students will need posters printed with the costs covered. Once approved by CSURF and/or HIPs, you will receive a specific deadline and instructions for submitting posters that will need to be shared with the students. Printing Services can handle larger jobs more easily than CSURF but printing posters is still not their main responsibility. November and April will continue to be busy times and you will want to get in the schedule early to avoid having to change deadlines for your students and schedules for your courses.

General instructions and tips for making posters can be found on the How to Make a Poster and Guidelines for Posters pages. Instructions for submitting your poster to be printed are below. We will print posters ONCE, so please read everything very carefully. Printing Services reserves the right to decline posters that do not meet the rules and guidelines described, and will likely do so at higher rates than CSURF has in the past. Alternatively, someone from Printing Services may reach out to you to make edits and it is your responsibility to be responsive to them. They get the final say. The following requirements MUST be met for your poster to be printed:

  • Files MUST be a print-ready PDF at 36 x 48 with no marks.
  • Artwork MUST have a "safety zone" of at least a half-inch border on all sides. No text or important graphics in this area.
  • MUST have high-resolution UNCW House logo in teal or navy prominently placed on poster. Also acceptable to have a white logo on a dark-colored background.

All submitted posters must be “Printer Ready”. This means all proof-reading must be done and approvals received from your mentors and co-authors before the file is submitted. We will not make changes or corrections to poster files. Do not submit "placeholder" posters just to meet a deadline.

Posters sent by email will not be printed.

We reserve the right to decline posters from those who repeatedly abuse the system.

How to Submit a Poster to be Printed

Faculty/Staff: If you are assigning posters in your classes or organizing an event and need posters printed and those costs covered, you must fill out this application and get approval from CSURF and/or HIPs. Once approved we will provide a due date and instructions for submission.

Students: You should have received instructions for how to submit your poster from your instructor or event organizer. If they have not provided you with this information, please ask them coordinate with Dr. Liu (liuk@uncw.edu).

**Please read carefully before proceeding**

All posters must be converted to a PDF (see instructions here) and named with LastName_UNCWUserName at the beginning of the file name (note: your username is the beginning of your email address, NOT your 850 number). For example, “Jones_tnj2394 ShowcasePoster.pdf”. This is how we know how to contact you if there are problems or when your poster is done. Incorrectly naming your poster may cause delays in communications. We are not responsible if you submit a ppt file and your poster does not convert correctly in the printing process. You will need to get it reprinted elsewhere.

To submit a poster for printing, upload the pdf of your poster to the appropriate folder below. Click on the blue "+Add new" button in the top left corner and then click on "Files upload". You will not be able to edit the filename so name it correctly before uploading it.

CSURF is partnering with Printing Services to have posters printed. Each Monday CSURF will send that week's folder to Printing Services where they will add the posters to their queue. Posters can be printed at any point during that week. Thus, if you need your poster on October 29, you should submit to the Week of October 20 folder, not the Week of October 27 folder. Speed of printing depends on if Printing Services needs additional time for edits, staffing, their other print jobs, speed of delivery, etc.

Plan accordingly, as posters sent by email will NOT be printed. You will receive an email when your poster is ready to be picked up. Pickup will continue to be in King Hall.

Troubleshooting Submitting Posters

If you upload the wrong file and OneDrive won’t let you delete it, there are many options to resolve the problem:

  1. You can override the file by uploading a new file with exactly the same name.
  2. Move it to the Do Not Print folder and then upload the correct file into the original folder. If you get an error about authorization privileges, calmly email Dr. Liu with the file name you would like her to delete.
  3. If the only problem is an incorrect filename, calmly email Dr. Liu with the current file name and what the new file name should be.
Do not leave multiple files in the main folder. This can result in significant delays or the incorrect poster being printed, which wastes time, energy, and resources.

There should be only one poster per file. If a file has more than one poster, we will simply not print anything.

Reminder: We will print posters ONCE. 

If you are presenting the same work at two events relatively close together, please save your poster and reuse it at subsequent events.

Contact Us

Center for the Support of Undergraduate Research & Fellowships

Phone: (910) 962-2703

csurf@uncw.edu

King Hall 2nd Floor

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