Technical Help

We provide these helpful tips as a resource for you. If you don’t find the information you’re looking for, please give us a call 846-1055 or e-mail us at spgm@ncifcrf.gov.

ChemDraw

If you have questions involving this software, please give us a call at (301) 846-1055.

Delta Graph

If you have questions involving this software, please give us a call at (301) 846-1055.

Displays and Exhibits

Custom displays for trade shows and exhibitions often have a longer useful lifetime than do scientific posters. In order to help you get the most of the product, we’d like to have a planning meeting with you as early as possible in the process. Bring us any materials you have ready, and give some thought to these essential elements:

• Who is the target audience?
• Will you need new photographs or graphics made?
• Would you like to have professional writing and editing assistance?
• Will display boards be provided or will you need to provide your own?

Rental Display Unit
We have a table-top display unit available for rent. Why buy your own for the two or three times a year you might need it? Our unit is very professional in appearance, easily portable and entirely self-contained. We can prepare custom graphics for you, and provide the unit to you with everything already in place - all you have to do is pop it open and attach the header.

Graphs & Illustrations

Graph software

Different programs have different strengths. When it comes to working with graphs, we’ve found that Excel is good for working with the raw data, and for generating the first rough draft of a graph. However, when it’s time to produce a finished graph for presentation, we prefer Delta Graph.

When you bring us a graph to use in a presentation or poster, we will always request that you bring us the data from which the graph was generated. This ensures that no matter what we do with the graph, it remains linked to its data, and therefore accurate. This also enables you to update the data for a finished graph, without destroying its appearance.

The most frequent problem we see with our customers’ graphs and figures is font substitution in symbols and Greek characters. This happens when the computer from which the file is being printed doesn’t have the same typefaces used in the file, and the computer makes a substitution – which may or may not be acceptable.

To prevent font substitutions, try to choose common fonts, like Arial, and Times New Roman, and select from the group of fonts called “TrueType fonts”. Also embed the fonts used in a figure, whenever the software offers that option. For instance, in PowerPoint on PC, under Tools>Options>Save, select “Embed TrueType fonts.”