Poster Printer - free (open source)

[mouser]

Looks nice.

"Poster Printer” works with your existing printer to allow you to print documents at a much larger size than would fit on a single printed page

http://posterprinter.sourceforge.net/

from freeware world team

[Eóin]

Looks nice alright, but that has got to be the ugliest site EVER.

Heres a similar but definitly not idenctial app;

http://homokaasu.org/rasterbator/

[housetier]

Yes the rasterbator is what I thought of too. Haven't tried either yet.

Can anyone write, like, a mini review of either service? I'd like to get a first (second?) hand impression of such services. I might try it once I have found a new apartment, I wanna get really creative when setting up my room.

[AbteriX]

Thanks for this find!
I have search for a tool like this ~6 weeks ago.

I think "rasterbator" is a tool to load an image and print this.
"PosterPrinter" acts as printer... you can use it from any application like WORD or PDF-Reader.

I will try PP as i find same calm minutes.

[Carol Haynes]

Anyone actually managed to install Poster Printer? I find it asks for a port but it doesn't matter what I type as a port (exisiting named ports, filenames, ports with printers attached) nothing works and the installation aborts ???

[Carol Haynes]

Yes the rasterbator is what I thought of too. Haven't tried either yet.

Can anyone write, like, a mini review of either service? I'd like to get a first (second?) hand impression of such services. I might try it once I have found a new apartment, I wanna get really creative when setting up my room.

Rasterbator doesn't exactly print posters (not straightforward enlargement) but rather produces 'dotty' images that look good from the other side of a room.

[mouser]

haven't tried it yet.
i do know there are also some shareware tools for this as well:
http://www.cadkas.de/downengprint1.php

[Carol Haynes]

I've emailed the author - see if we get a response

[eschen]

You may have a look at 2G PosterWorks. About $9 and amazing results when you have images with 300dpi and 1280x1024 resolution, even with a 3x3 A4 page matrix.

Here are some examples. Have a look at the "Posters" section near the end of the page. "Lab Creatures" (Wallpaper for original image, 2x2 PDF, 3x3 PDF), the last image in the list was done with the latest release, the file length is much shorter than the other images that were done with the older release, we used first.

We had a look at:

* ACEPoster
* PosterPrint
* PrintExpander

free:
* MegaPoster
* Posteriza

As the author of PosterWorks says himself (similar to our experiences with these tools):

It's better (higher resolution images, support for wide-format printers and paper stock, PDF document conversion, more functionality, larger maximum poster size) than its competitors, it's faster (can spool a full-page high-resolution image as faster as your printer will take it -- no print lag); and cheaper ($8.95! You gotta be kidding me).

[mouser]

great post eschen, and welcome to the site!

[without commenting on this specifc set of programs, in general i think for most of us, spending $10 for a superior tool will almost always be a smarter idea than paying $0 for a tool not as good.  especially when its going to cost you that much in ink to do the printout]

(ps anyone feel like doing a bit of googling and filling in the websites for those other tools as well?)

[nudone]

i can't honestly remember which programs i've tried in the past but, if i remember correctly, they don't quite do the full job that is required.

the problem lies in the edges of the print and more importantly, how you join them all back together.

if you don't mind having 'rough' edges and obvious overcuts and undercuts in your final joined poster then there's nothing to worry about. or, perhaps, you are an eagle eye cutter that can cut the perfect edge so that you don't stray into the part that contains the print and nor do you stray away from it thereby leaving an obvious white sliver.

maybe my memory doesn't serve me well and there is a program i tried that did a slight 'overprint' so that you don't need a qualified surgeon to perform the cutting out. i do remember just using ms publisher in the end as that allowed me to adjust overprint borders how i wanted them.

now that my brain is getting warmed up i think 'poster printery' probably had the ability????

[eschen]

Good point. But, with a little experience you can get good results without it, too. Start with a 2x2 matrix, then try the bit more harder ones (3x3, ...) 

A good (office) guillotine can help to get straighter cuts than with a pair of scissors.

[nudone]

i've got a guillotine, eschen, and whilst it is better than plane old scissors it still leaves room for error. i admit i'm being real picky about how the cuts are done - i just want the finished poster to look as seamless and whole as possible and i've found that using the overprint method is the only real way of doing it.

my problem really, i shouldn't expect things to be so perfect.

[tomos]

I got to print stuff often that's bigger than A4, - using Freehand - you can "Tile" the image and dictate the overlap.
At god knows what price you're probably not going to get Freehand just for that

But, what I do then is - use a medical scalpel and one of those cutting mats (in\correct name??) and you can crop edges very accurately.
I use it for photos too, can't trust a guillotine for really fine work ...

[Carol Haynes]

I've emailed the author - see if we get a response

Just got a friendly and helpful reply from Michael Overlin re. problems installing Poster Print. The installer should enter the correct port automatically but on my system it obviously didn't do it properly. If anyone else has this problem enter "virtual printer port" without the quotes and installation goes ahead fine. Now I am going to have a play ...