I guess Photoshop would do it, but I don’t have that, and I’d rather use something else anyway.
I have a custom periodic table that I made for my chemistry classes, that frankly beats down every one I’ve seen. I have a line on a way to print this at a super scale for very little money, and then I can tack spray glue it to the old poster board of the table I hate that is on the wall of the classroom. I’m willing to remake the table in some other software, now that I have most of the kinks worked out.
I just found that Excel only allows design of whatever your print driver can do. Now I find that Word wants me to max out at 22 inches, and I want 92 inches long.
TeX? Seriously that would be perfect for a whole range of reasons - but it isn’t for the faint hearted.
The usual answer in terms of commercial tools would be Adobe Illustrator, or one of the similar tools.
What you are finding is that the usual desktop PC tools are not really fit for purpose beyond simple office automation tasks. They can be cajoled into doing a B- level job, but not a professional job.
Any Postcript/PDF output should be able to be scaled when printed. However there are a range of technical issues that make this less satisfactory than it might be. However it is the common answer.
So why not just install the driver for a printer that can print something 92 inches long? For instance, HP Latex printer can print up to 64 inches wide.
And you mentioned “a line on a way to print this at a super scale for very little money”. You could download the driver for that device.
Illustrator or InkScape would be the way to go, but you can also do it half or quarter size in Excel or whatever you like, print to a PDF, and have the PDF enlarged when you print. PDFs are generally vector files that have infinite resolution when printed (though they can also contain images that may degrade when enlarged).
You can get a free trial of either Adobe InDesign (slightly better tool for the job) or Illustrator (would also work just fine):
(Or it’s $20/mo for students)
PS: PDFs won’t magically do anything for resolution unless you start out in a vector program (Illustrator, InDesign, or sometimes in MS Office, but that depends on what you do… in general, text and shapes/lines made originally in those programs will stay vector, but photographs and copy-pasted images/graphics generally will be low-resolution raster/pixellated art).
PPS: If it’s not a very complicated design, just text in squares, PM me and maybe I can make it for you and send you the PDF?
One problem with simple scaling is that the proportions of a family of fonts vary with the design size. A 12-point size does not look the same as a blown-up 6-point font due to optical sizing. You need to work with display or poster size right from the start.
Therefore you should not mess around with scaling or zooming unless you know exactly what you are doing. Don’t forget to ask the printer for technical requirements (TrimBox and BleedBox configured correctly, etc.)
None of the software described above beats the versatility of Visio for this specific task. Being part of a educational institution you will most likely have free access to Visio or a nominal sum of money maybe needed.
Of course a CAD software will be the best, but there is a steep learning curve on using AutoCAD or the like. Visio is easy to use and it comes with libraries for symbols and it is easy to insert pictures etc.
Inkscape was mentioned above, but I’ll echo that recommendation, particularly if you don’t want to have to pay a few hundred dollars for an Adobe product. (Inkscape is open-source.) It can create vector-graphics documents of arbitrary size.
I would use TeX, but then I use it for everything. My daughter recently had to edit some documents in found it surprisingly easy to understand, but creation is another matter.
But I mainly came in here to ask if there is a link to your chart that I could download it.
I use open office and gimp for all my graphic design needs. It has no problem with sizes, I regularly make giant banners that I have to go to fedex to have printed.
I work in GIS so we make maps. Big ones. We have a 42" plotter.
gimp is a good idea I think. But what I do with it is make icons for my web page. It looks VERY scaleable though. But IMHO has a pretty steep learning curve.
Another vote for Inkscape. And another vote for seeing your periodic table, because seeing what’s special about it could alter my advice.
For now though, the easiest thing to do is download and install Inkscape, start a new document with the document settings at the size you want, then import (just drag and drop) an already completed periodic table in SVG format (like this one) and make whatever changes to it that you want. As long as you ain’t selling it, might as well not bother recreating the wheel. You can also import useful periodic tables in PDF format if they’re fully vector based, but they may be a little more tedious to edit than an SVG.
That’s a pretty good way to start learning Inkscape, too.
Seconded. Would love to see or hear what’s special about your edition. What’s confusing me is you say you’ve already got it made at a small scale, so what format is it in now?
I would recommend Microsoft Publisher.
It is fairly good at making large printer-friendly documents. I have used it several times to make posters. And if you use Excel, you may already have it installed.
It’s a long shot, but have you checked with your public library to see what they offer?
I know my library is much more well-equipped than most (which is why this is a long shot) but we have an area with 3D printer, super large-scale printer, and the like along with the computers and software needed for projects. Sometimes too libraries have reciprocal agreements with other libraries which would allow you to use the equipment/software at a library in another town or at a local college.
