Building a printable flyer

[Angus4556]

    I am creating a printable event flyer. I have created my paper at 11x17 but I can't get my first image to scale up and fill the space I need it to fill... What am I doing wrong?

[rich2005]

(Yesterday, 07:37 PM)Angus4556 Wrote: I am creating a printable event flyer. I have created my paper at 11x17 but I can't get my first image to scale up and fill the space I need it to fill... What am I doing wrong?

This can be a large subject for a beginner.  Is this going to a printing company ?  or for home printing ? ( a big size for a home printer) 

The first thing is set up a base canvas. 
File -> New and you get this.

   

Since it is for printing you can use inches as the units and set the width and height (11 x 17) Note that Gimp actually uses pixels. You can see the pixel size is 3300 x 5100 pix and that in turn depends on the print resolution. 300 pixels per inch (ppi) is default for photo quality. Hmm.. a largish flyer, you might get away with 200 ppi (ask your printing company)  This gives your canvas as a background layer.

You screebshot shows only one layer. You need the added image as a separate layer, so use File -> Open as layers, select the image and it is planted in the middle of the canvas.  For scaling and moving I recommend using the Unified Transform tool. You can drag the handles to scale and click inside and move All in a single operation, gives best quality.

   

For the remainder of the flyer, build it up by adding layers both under and over that graphic layer.

   

Save your work as a Gimp .xcf file, It keeps all layers / active selections / guides / ...etc.   Export as a jpeg or tif for a printer company.

[Angus4556]

Thank you for your quick and thorough response. Yes, it is my home printer, I do home remodeling design work and 11x17 is goto plan sets. Thank you again and I will try this later on today.

[rich2005]

(7 hours ago)Angus4556 Wrote: Thank you for your quick and thorough response. Yes, it is my home printer, I do home remodeling design work and 11x17 is goto plan sets. Thank you again and I will try this later on today.

I do not normally use Windows, 99% linux but I do know that Gimp has problems printing other than US Letter or A4.

Make your image in Gimp, export it.If your printer comes with some graphics program maybe use that.

Alternatives. 
Use something like MS Word or LibreOffice for printing
Export as a PDF and use a PDF app for printing