You’re hosting a football party and you want to show your Football Squares poster size so everyone can see. What’s the best way to print football squares and where can you do that quick?
To print football squares as a poster, you first need to find a football squares with the right resolution and dimensions. Then, find a local store that offers printing service and then bring the files in to have them print the poster for you. Online ordering and pickup may be an option as well.
Not every printable Football Squares will actually work or look good at poster size, depending on what poster size you’re looking for. For printing, professional printshops will give you best looking results but there are nationwide stores that also offer printing services that do a great job too, and offer a quick turnaround at lower prices usually.
Find A Football Squares That Is The Right Size
Not every Football Squares that you find online will work well for printing at poster size. It needs to have the right print resolution and dimensions to look good. If the resolution isn’t high enough, your poster will look blurry and if it’s not the right dimensions, your Football Squares will either be cropped, be scaled out of proportion, or not fill the poster all the way.
If you’re buying a printable Football Squares, chances are they were created at 300dpi (dots per inch). To look great printed, they should be at least 225dpi and to look OK, 150dpi is barely passable. Just a quick note, all of the Football Squares in my store are at 300 dpi.
So what does that mean for scaling up? Most of the Football Squares that you can find online will be designed for a standard letter size paper at 8.5″ X 11″. In general, those will scale up to 16″ X 20″ (drops the dpi down to 165) but anything beyond that size is going to look notably worse the larger you go, especially at 24″ X 36″ and 36″ X 48″ sizes. For the larger poster sizes, you should look for football squares that are specifically designed for those sizes.
It’s not just the print resolution that you should look at. The print dimensions are important too. A standard letter paper size has a ratio of 1 to 1.29 which means that the length is 29% longer than the width. A 16″ X 20″ poster size has a ratio of 1 to 1.25 which is pretty close but a 24″ X 36″ poster size has a ratio of 1 to 1.5 which doesn’t fit nicely. To illustrate this, I’ve included thumbnails below for how a standard letter-size Football Squares would size on the most common poster sizes.
Notice the white spaces that don’t get printed on. If you have the design get stretched to fill the space, the more white that it has to cover, the more distorted it will look.
Standard Poster Sizes
If you’re not sure what poster size you want, I’ve included a diagram below that shows the different sizes that are available. Generally for large gatherings, you’ll want to go with a 36″ X 24″ (3 foot by 2 foot) Football Squares for larger spaces or a 24″ X 18″ (2 foot by 1.5 foot) Football Squares for smaller spaces.
Where To Find Poster Sized Football Squares
For the best printed results, you need a Football Squares that has been designed for that poster size. You can find poster sizes ready to download and print here on my website, or there’s several that are offered on Etsy as well.
Find A Place To Print Your Poster Locally
Now that you’ve found a good Football Squares to print as a poster, where should you get it printed? If you’re looking for the best results, your local printshop will probably do the best job and will have the most expertise. However, there are several nationwide stores that also offer professional printing services that provide a quick turnaround at great prices.
Local Professional Printing Services
If you do a Google search for local printing services, you’ll probably find a good list of local printshops near you. Working with a local printer will usually offer professional results from a local expert. Even though there may be a wait time to get your finished printed poster and it may cost a little more, having your Football Squares printed right may be worth it to you. You’ll also be working with a trained professional that can guide you through the process and work with you more. You’ll also be supporting a local business.
Nationwide Stores That Have Printing Services
Quite a few national stores offer professional printing services. These are big name stores and you may be surprised to know that they offer poster printing too.
Office Depot (includes Office Max), Fedex, and Staples all offer full poster printing services and accept PDF files and image formats. You can also print posters from images at Walmart, Walgreens, and CVS stores. All of these stores offer in-person ordering and online ordering where you can pick up your orders later to avoid the wait.
Review the table below for file formats accepted and which stores have in store services, shipping, and turnaround times. Click on the store names to visit their websites. I’ve called each of these stores personally to verify what they offer for poster printing. You can find the poster sizes and prices further down in this article.
| Store | In-Store Printing | File Formats | Ship Cost* | Ship Time | Store Pickup |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Office Depot | Yes | PDF, JPG, PNG | $9.95 | 1-2 days | Same day |
| Fedex | Yes | PDF, JPG, PNG | $9.99 | 2-3 days | Same day |
| Staples | Yes | PDF, JPG, PNG | $8.99 | 2-3 days | Same/next day |
| Walgreens | Yes | JPG, PNG | $6.99 | 3-5 days | Same day |
| Walmart | Yes | JPG, PNG | $6.99 | 5-8 days | 5-8 days |
| CVS | Yes | JPG, PNG | – | – | Same day |
Bring In Your Files And Wait While They Print
Not every printshop will offer walk-in printing but the large stores listed above all do: they either have a dedicated print and marketing department, or they have an easy to use kiosk where you can add images from your phone or thumb drive. For most, you’ll need to bring your files to the printer on a thumb drive or your phone, order the service, and then wait for your job to be completed. Depending on when you stop into the store, you may have hours of print jobs ahead of you or your wait may be just a few minutes.
Walmart, Walgreens, and CVS all use a photo services kiosk that has an easy to follow interface that walks you through your order. From what I’ve seen, these only accept JPEG and PNG image files such as would be found in your iPhone or Android phone photo gallery. They also allow you to put files on a thumb drive and after I chatted with employees at CVS and Walmart, it sounds like that’s the best option. Both employees didn’t think that PDFs would work however, so if your Football Squares is in PDF format, you’ll need to go to a professional printshop, Office Depot (which also owns Office Max), Fedex, or Staples.
Or, Order Online And Pick Up Your Poster Later
For most poster printing, the better option for printing a poster is to order it online. That way you can order and then make a quick trip to the store to pick up your order. This way you won’t have to wait for your print order to be completed, you’ll get an online preview so you’ll see how it will look, and you won’t have to transfer the files to a thumb drive.
While online ordering through any of these websites has gotten a lot easier, it may still not be your cup of tea. If that’s the case, you may want to copy the files to a thumb drive and bring it into the printshop and have them take care of it for you.
How Much Does It Cost To Print Posters?
In general, 16″ X 20″ and 18″ X 24″ posters will cost under $20 to print. A 24″ X 36″ poster will cost around $30 to print on standard paper stock. Prices will differ based on sizes, paper, and stores.
If you have a local specialized printshop, pricing may be more since you’re working with a professional printer. Retail stores that offer printing services will have very affordable pricing along with quick turnaround times. I’ve put together a table below that shows which poster sizes these stores offer and their prices (as of writing this article).
| Store | 12″ x 18″ | 16″ x 20″ | 18″ x 24″ | 22″ x 28″ | 20″ x 30″ | 24″ x 36″ | 36″ x 48″ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Office Depot | – | $13.99 | $15.99 | – | – | $30.99 | $45.99 |
| Fedex | – | $17.25 | $17.25 | $28.75 | – | $34.50 | – |
| Staples | $12.50 | – | $18.75 | – | – | $37.50 | $75.00 |
| Walgreens | $14.99 | $19.99 | – | – | $25.99 | $31.99 | – |
| Walmart | $9.86 | $13.86 | – | – | $19.86 | $21.86 | – |
| CVS | $14.99 | $19.99 | 20.99 | – | $24.99 | $31.99 | – |
End Zone
Hopefully this article helps you with finding the right Football Squares to print poster size, where to print it and how to do it. If you have a couple of days before the football game, you may want to order a reusable poster that is dry erase. These work great since you can reuse them for every game, just use dry erase markers to write in the names and numbers, and erase when the game is over.
Check out my Football Squares Posters page for the best reusable posters to buy.
