Computer skills from scratch·Everyday office·Lesson 58 of 180
A simple poster that can be read
Ellis Dennis GrahamFounder, Cyber Elias Academy 2026-06-05 3 min
A poster is a shout from across a room. One heading, one sentence, one time and place. Size 72 is not pride. It is distance. Colour is optional. Printing is the test.
A poster is not a letter. A letter is read at a desk. A poster is read while walking — a church door, a school gate, a shop window. If the walker must stop and squint, the poster failed. Word can make one. Canva can make one. A marker and a card can make one. The tool is not the point. One heading, one sentence, the time and the place. This lesson is that discipline, in Word, because you already have Word.
Page Layout or Layout, Orientation, Landscape if you want a wide sheet, Portrait for a door. Margins Normal or narrow. Type the heading first, large — 48 or 72, bold, one typeface. Then a sentence a person can say aloud: Computer Basics, Saturday 9 o'clock, 26 Ebony Road. Then a phone number. Then stop. A photograph is optional and must not sit on the words. If you add one, keep it small, as in the letter lesson.
Canva, if you must, and the same rules
Canva is a website of templates. Walk to canva.com on the real street. Sign in with the Google account you made on purpose. Choose a poster size — A4 is enough to print at a business centre. A template is a costume. Delete the extra boxes until you have a heading and a sentence. Free templates are fine. “Pro” lock icons are a shop. You do not need them for a class announcement.
Download as PDF for print, PNG for WhatsApp. PDF for the business centre, as you know. A PNG in a group chat will be compressed; the heading must still be large enough to survive soup. If it cannot, the poster was too clever. Make the words bigger. Send.
- In Word, one landscape page. Heading, one sentence, a place, a number.
- No more than two typefaces. Black on white is enough.
- Print preview. Then one real print if you can.
- Do not steal a famous logo to “look official.” A clear sentence is official enough.
What a poster is not
It is not a programme of ten courses in size 12. That is a flyer for a hand, or a letter. It is not a photograph of a full Word page taken with a phone at an angle. Export. It is not fluorescent text on a fluorescent ground. Contrast is kindness. If the academy already has a simple sheet, copy the bones — heading, date, place — not the decoration from a party invitation.
When you can read it from the door, you are done. Save as poster-class.pdf in Documents. A poster is a one-job page. You already know one job per email. Same manners, larger letters.
