A
Art Paper
Paper coated with a fine clay compound, which creates a smooth surface on one or both sides, used when a higher quality of print is required such as full-colour work.
Artwork or A/W
Artwork is the name given to your digital file that goes to print. This used to be created in a traditional format but these days is digital information which can be stored on disc of sent via email or ISDN.
Author's Corrections
The term used for alterations or additions made to copy after receipt of proofs, which are not corrections of any errors (and are therefore chargeable) made in the typesetting but may be in addition to any errors found.
B
Back-up
To print on the reverse side of a printed sheet.
Board
Board is any weight of paper above 170gsm.
Bond Paper
A grade of writing or printing paper generally manufactured for letterheads or forms.
Back to Back or Backed Up
Printing on both sides of a sheet of paper.
Blanket
Rubber surfaced material which is secured onto one of the cylinders on a printing press onto which the image is first transferred from the printing plate and then subsequently transferred onto the paper itself.
Brightness
The reflectance or brilliance of the paper when measured under a specially calibrated blue light.
Bulk
Paper thickness. Sometimes used as the number of pages per inch (PPI).
Bleed or Bleed Off
Any printed matter on the page which extends past the edge of the finished size page is said to "bleed". This is done by printing beyond the finished size page on larger sheets of paper than trimming the sheet to the finished size.
Blind Embossed
A logo, text or design which has been relief stamped into a sheet of paper or board.
Bold Face/Weight
Thicker, heavier weight of type such as this, usually used for headings or emphasis.
C
Calendered
Paper that has been smoothed and polished between sets of rollers called a calender; this process is usually done at the dry end of a papermaking machine.
Calender Rolls
A series of metal rolls at the end of a paper machine; when the paper is passed between these rolls, it increases its smoothness, gloss and reduces it's bulk.
Caliper
The thickness of a single sheet of paper. Expressed in microns. 1,000 microns = 1 millimetre.
Carbonless Paper
Paper commonly used to produced multi-part business forms. Chemically transfers images from one sheet to another without carbon paper. The sheets are coated on one or two sides with an emulsion of colourless dyes and oils. A set is made up of three types of papers:
CB (coated black) which is the top white sheet in the set.
CF (coated front) which is the bottom sheet.
CFB (coated front and back) which is used for middle sheets of a multi-part form.
Cartridge Paper
Slightly rough coated or uncoated paper.
Cast Coated
A type of art paper that is coated than pressure dried using a polished roller that gives an enamel-like hard gloss finish.
Cast Coating
A process which gives paper an extremely glossy enamel finish.
Chemical Pulp
Pulp made by cooking the wood in the presence of chemical agents (acids or alkali) which eliminates most of the non-fibrous material.
Chemi-thermo Mechanical Pulp (CTMP)
Same as TMP only chips are also sprayed with chemicals.
CMYK
The initial letters of Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and K for Black which are the four ink colours used in four colour process (ie. full colour) printing. In this method of printing a separate printing plate produced from the colour-separated film carries the image for each of the four colours, the paper stock is then fed through the press and each of the four process colours (CMYK) is printed on to the stock in succession resulting in a full colour image.
Coated Paper
Paper or Board with a coating to produce a smooth, ink receptive finish that will enhance the sharpness and gloss of the printed image.
Coating
A layer of minerals applied to one or both sides of paper or board to improve brightness, gloss and printability; the coating is held together and stuck to the paper by a binder.
Collating
To gather sheets of paper together in their corrected order.
Colour Separations
Separate pieces of film or camera-ready artwork required for printing work in more than one colour whether Pantone spot colour or CMYK separations for full colour work. A separate piece of film is required for each colour.
Copier/Laser Papers
Lightweight grades of good quality and dimensionally stable papers used for copying correspondence and documents.
Creasing
An indentation made in thick paper to prevent cracking.
Crop Marks
Small lines that show the document edge essential for register and trim.
Cromalin
Cromalin or matchprint proofing methods are quicker and cheaper than wet proofs but are not as colour accurate. Cromalins and Matchprints do not use plates but they do use the final film. The result is a very glossy proof, which heightens the red and yellow. Cromalins and Matchprints are approximately 90% colour accurate. When producing a job on matt paper these proofs do not give a true representation of the final project because of their glossy finish.
CTP (computer to plate)
A system whereby the plates used in the printing process are produced directly from the computer file eliminating the need for film.
Curl
Tendency of paper by itself to bend or partly wrap around the axis of one of its directions. Usually caused by changes in weather, faulty drying on the paper machine or in a multi-ply sheet with differing ply composition.
D
Dandy Roll
In papermaking, the cylinder that creates a laid, wove, or watermark effect.
Die Cutting
This is the process where an image is cut to a specified shape. The die is a wooden block with several metal cutters in position to the required shape. This is then brought into contact with the material under pressure to cut out the shape on either a flat bed or rotary press.
Duplex
Mailing terminology, laser printing the sheet both sides.
Damping
The process of applying water to the lithographic plate on a lithographic printing machine.
Dot Gain
Four colour process printing is comprised of individual dots of the four CMYK colours, dot gain is the term used to describe the increase the size of the dot from the film to what actually appears on the printed image. Coated papers should have a lower dot gain than lower quality uncoated bond paper because on uncoated surfaces the ink dots dry partially by absorption which increases their size.
Drilling
The process of creating holes in paper typically for inserting into a ring binder.
Drop Shadow
A duplicate shadow image placed behind an image or text to create the illusion of depth.
Duotone
An artistic effect of a two-colour (black plus a sport colour) image generated from a greyscale photograph.
Docket
Mailing terminology - Royal Mail document used to log postal transaction.
Digital Printing
A system that does not need to go through the same stages as conventional offset printing. There are no films or plates produced and the image is transferred directly to the print unit. Digital printing is ideal for short run high quality work as it is more cost effective for short run jobs and because it is data driven and has the potential to be different.
DPI
Dots per inch - a measure of the resolution of a display or output device.
Dummy
An exact, handmade format sample created with blank paper to show the desired size, shape, weight and general appearance of a job prior to production.
Die Stamping
To cut paper, card or board to a particular size and design with a metal die, for packaging and display work.
Duct
The ink reservoir in a printing machine.
E
EPS
Encapsulated PostScript - a file format usually containing object graphics. Also facilitates the exchange of PostScript graphic files between applications.
Encapsulation
Output protected by sealing usually with a clear laminate on both dies and with an edge seal, so that no area is exposed to moisture.
Emulsion
The light sensitive coating of a photographic material such as film.
F
Filling In
An undesirable effect in printing in which the ink begins to fill in areas of fine lines or half tone dots.
Fit
The term used for registration or how distinct areas such as two colours in a logo align to each other.
Flush
Aligned to the margin with no indentation eg. flush left. The paragraphs on this page are flush left.
Font
Referred to as a typeface.
Folding
This is the operation of folding a flat piece of paper into the required sequence. It is performed on a buckle or knife folder. The paper is passed through a series of stations, each station performing a different fold - eg. A4 paper will be folded once to give you an A5 4 page leaflet. There are two main types of folding - roll fold, this I a fold on itself and concertina fold - this is a fold on a 6 pages leaflet or above where the leaflet is concertinaed.
Fold/Insert
Mailing terminology referring to the folding and inserting process involved in getting documents into mailing envelopes.
French Fold
A sheet of paper that has been printed on one side only and then folded twice to form an uncut four page section.
G
Gatefold
A paper fold in which both sides are folded across the middle of the sheet in overlapping layers.
GIF (graphic interchange format)
GIF is one of the most common graphic file formats used on the internet. Whereas the JPG format is best used for images such as photographs, GIF is better for images such as logos etc. and images that contain areas of block colours. The GIF format supports a palette of 256 colours although this can be reduced to reduce file size. GIF also supports transparency so the background of a web page can be seen behind the GIF image.
Graphics
Mailing terminology - logo and images that need to be incorporated into the document.
Grain
Fibres in a sheet of paper all lie in one direction, this is called the grain. Paper is usually long grain ie. the grain lies in the same direction as the longer edge of the sheets.
Grain Long
The grain of paper is parallel to the long dimension of a sheet of paper eg. 45 x 64cm, long grain, indicates that the grain is travelling in the 64cm direction.
Grain Short
The grain of paper is parallel to the short dimension of a sheet of paper, or at right angles to the long dimension, eg. 64 x 45cm, short grain, indicates that the grain is travelling in the 45cm direction.
Grip or Grip Edge
Sheets of paper, when passing through a printing press, are usually held in place along the leading edge by a gripper bar whilst passing through the cylinders, because of this it is not possible to print on this area. This non-printable area is know as the grip edge.
GSM or GM2
The weight of a sheet of paper that is one square meter in size, this is the universal descriptive used for paper weights.
Gathering
Placing the sections of a book in the correct order for binding.
Ghosting
An image which appears as a lighter area on a subsequent print due to local blanket depressions from previous image areas.
Graduation
The smooth transition from one tone or colour to another, or the range of values between black and white.
H
Halftone
It is theoretically possible to print 100 different versions of any one colour by varying the size of the dots that make up that colour, reducing the size of the dot increases the white area around the dot and gives the optical illusion of making it lighter.
HTML or Hypertext Mark Up Language
HTML is the mark up language used to display web pages. Once an HTML file is received by the PCs browser software it then "decodes" this HTML to produce a page of text and images by arranging the text and further down loading and displaying any images referenced in the HTML file. This page is described in HTML.
Hickey
A spot on a printed sheet caused by dust, lint or ink imperfections. It is particularly noticeable on solids or halftones.
I
Imposition
The arrangement of pages ready for plate making in the correct sequence, layout and orientation that is required to produce the finish document.
ISDN
With the onset of broadband ISDN will become obsolete, however it still offers a relatively fast but most importantly secure method of data transfer.
Impression Cylinder
A cylinder of a printing press which supports one surface of the sheet or web while the other surface receives its printed image from the blanket cylinder.
Inking Roller
A printing machine roller that carries ink from the fountain to the plate.
J
JPEG Joint Photographic Experts Group
A 24 bit image format capable of displaying 16 million colours. JPEG is the most commonly used compression format used to display photographic type images on the internet. In order to reduce the file size and therefore download and display quickly on a web page, compression techniques are used which sacrifice image quality for image size. This type of image is therefore unsuitable for using in high quality print projects. Most digital cameras store photos in this format in order to store a greater number of images on the storage medium.
Justification
Blocks of text justified and aligned flush to both left and right margins. This is achieved by adjusting the spacing between words to force the words to align to both margins. Commonly used in novels and newspaper columns.
K
Knockout, Overprint, Registration and Trap
When printed on an offset press, objects which overlap or are printed on top of another colour can produce problems. Once undesirable result can be the unintentional creation of a third colour eg. Red overprinted on a yellow background could cause the red to appear as orange, to compensate for this, the foreground object would be "knocked out" of the background eg. a duplicate of the foreground object would be reversed out of the background. Dark colours such as black can be set to overprint so that no knockout is created, this makes register much easier as there is no reversed out image below for the foreground object to be fitted into. To make registration between overlapping colours and to compensate for slight miss registration on the press a slight overlap is created know as trap. Trap ensures that if there is a slight miss registration on the press, no undesirable unprinted area such as the white paper underneath will be visible.
L
Laid Finish Paper
Expensive but somewhat old fashioned paper that was historically associated with quality printing paper that has a slightly raised fine parallel-lined effect.
Live data proof
Mailing terminology, once all the programming has been done and layouts agreed live data is supplied resulting in live data proofs being sent to the client.
Laminating
This is a process, which covers the printed area in a gloss or matt coating. The lamination is applied with a water-based adhesive. This increases tear resistance and allows for a wipe free surface.
Laser Proof
A laser is a proof which shows you the copy, basic layout and low resolution images and content of your job including transparencies and/or illustrations you have specified. This is not a check for colour, the colour check will come at the next stage of the print process.
Letterpress
Old style printing presses which utilised raised inked surfaces to transfer the image onto sheets of paper. This process is largely obsolete now in favour of offset litho printing which is much faster and gives much higher quality.
Lithography
Printing process in which the image from the printing plate is first transferred (offset) onto a rubber blanket and then transferred onto the paper.
Laser Papers
Papers with special coatings or hard finishes that are optimised for laser printers and copiers.
M
Machine Varnish/Sealer
Varnishes are used to enhance the finish of a print job. Sealers are used to reduce ink smudging or fingerprints marking onto a job. Your job may require a sealer particularly if there are large areas of ink coverage. Machine varnishes and sealers are applied during printing at the end of the press.
A 'spot varnish' covers a selected area, whilst a 'solid varnish' covers the entire sheet.
Moiree
The undesirable effect produced by the incorrect angles of overprinting halftone screens, when these screens are printed on top of each other they cause moirees or unwanted patterns.
Mechanical Pulp
Wood is pulped in the paper making process, chemical pulping produces the most desirable paper but is the least cost effective, mechanical pulping is the cheapest but produces a poorer quality paper.
Mailsort
To sort the data by postcode and sub region to enable more efficient postal delivery.
Make-Ready
Paper that is used in the press set-up process before the printing run actually starts.
Matt Finish
A dull, clay-coated paper without gloss or lustre.
Mechanical Pulp
Same as groundwood pulp. Pulp produced by grinding logs and wood chips into pulp.
Micrometer
Instrument used to measure the thickness (calliper) of paper.
Moisture Content
The amount of moisture in paper, normally ranging from 5% to 8%. Paper easily picks up or emits moisture to and from the surrounding environment.
Manilla
Paper formally produced from manilla hemp but now produced from softwood kraft pulp.
N
NCR Papers (no carbon required)
Specially coated papers that will react to pressure to produce duplicate copies without the use of carbon.
Newsprint
The relatively low grade paper on which newspapers are printed; it is mainly produced from mechanical pulp and recycled fibres.
Numbering
Printing a unique number on a job, ie. tickets.
O
Offset Printing
The most commonly used printing process used today. The printed paper/board does not receive the ink directly from the printing plate but from an intermediary blanket cylinder that receives the ink from the plate and transfers it to the printed sheet.
Opacity
The degree of opaqueness of a sheet of paper, that determines its ability to prevent printing on the other side of the sheet to show through.
Optical Character Recognition (OCR)
An optical method of gathering data, as the term suggests, you scan the page(s) on a flatbed scanner and then the OCR software processes the resulting image and converts it into editable text by optically recognising the shape of the individual characters.
Overprinting
The term used for any printing that is done on paper that has already been printed.
P
Pages
The number of pages is determined by the number of sides and not the number of leaves.
Proof
Visual representation of the finished job, designed to show the client what the final product will look like, the likeness of which is dependant upon what type of proof is requested.
Proofs vary in quality from PC viewable PDF's which only show content and style through to machine proofs which will accurately represent the finished colours, layout and substrate.
PPI
Postage paid impressions, appear on pre-printed envelopes to signify what postal service is to be used.
Process Data
Mailing terminology, to prepare the supplied data for the software applications used in the bureau.
Program
Mailing terminology, compiling test data and any relevant design requirement into a working proof.
Perfect Binding
This is another process to keep all the collated pages of a book together. This is the process used when producing books with many pages. The pages are collated into sections. These sections are then clamped together and glue is applied. The cover is then attached. Perfect bound books have spines of which the minimum width is 3mm.
Pre-Press
This is the series of preparation processes that occur from your submission of final artwork to getting the job onto the printing press. Once you have supplied your CD or ISDN to the printer, the printer will then supply you with a proof. The CD is loaded into the Mac, all of the component parts of your printed project will then be checked. Your artwork will show position, colours, tint, values and low-resolution or hi-resolution scans.
The printer will then ascertain from this information what makes up your project. If you have supplied transparencies, these will have to be scanned. Scanning is the operation where the transparency is separated into its 4 colours (cyan, yellow, magenta and black). These colours will then be transferred onto the Mac in the correction position. Once all of the parts are in place, the hi-res scans in position, the next stage is to produce films. You printer produces one film for each colour you are using. So if you are printing a project in 6 colours, you produce 6 films.
If you are producing a litho job, you will need to produce plates. Film is placed onto an aluminium plate. The image is then exposed using a camera. This involves shinning a light source onto the film, which then burns the required image onto the plate. One plate is required for each colour your are reproducing. This method is all but been replaced by CTP computer to plate.
Pantone
The Pantone Matching System (PMS) is an international system used primarily in the printing trade to specify spot colours. It was developed to eliminate the obvious limitations and ambiguity of terms such as 'red' or 'green' etc. Printing inks are missed using formulas to match exactly the Pantone colour references. Using Pantone references is the best way to ensure that the correct colour is used every time. Pantone Colour Reference charts and swatches should be used to specify colour. Whether you use a printers in Perth or Paraguay, if you use Pantone reference numbers you know that correct shade will be used.
Plate Cylinder
The cylinder on a printing press on which the plate is mounted.
Points
A unit of measurement used in typography usually used to measure the size of type. There are 72 points to an inch, so 72 point type will be roughly one inch high. Body text is often set in the range of 10 to 14 points.
PDF - portable document format
A file format created by Adobe that lets people share documents regardless of the operating system and software application used to create the document. PDF is a file format designed to preserve fonts, images, graphics, and formatting of an original application file. Using the free Adobe Acrobat Reader software, a PDF file can be viewed, shared and printed by PC, Unix and Macintosh users.
Primary Colours
In photography they are red, green and blue.
In printing they are cyan, magenta, yellow and black - CMYK.
Perforate
Broken slotted cuts or rules to enable the paper to be torn in the correct place.
R
Recycled Paper
Made from wastepaper - varying percentages. The quality of green paper has greatly improved. The criteria for 'green' paper is the lack of chlorine used. The use of sustainable forests in the production of the paper and the ability of the paper to be re-cycled. This paper can be coated or uncoated.
Ream
Unit of wrap for paper and board.
Register and Register Marks
To enable the printer to arrange of two or more items on a page in exact alignment with each other.
Reel
A continuous length of paper wound on a core.
Resolution
The sharpness and clarity of an image.
RGB
Red, green and blue. Primary colours of light, used for all photographic and digital capture of coloured imaged by camera and scanners.
RIP
Raster image processor.
Register
The correct alignment of plates with the margins in order, it is also the correct positioning of one colour over another colour in colour printing.
S
Sizes
A5 210 x 148mm SRA5 160 x 225mm B5 180 x 255mm A4 297 x 210mm SRA4 225 x 320mm B4 255 x 360mm A3 420 x 297mm SRA3 320 x 450mm B3 360 x 510mm A2 594 x 420mm SRA2 450 x 640mm B2 510 x 720mm A1 840 x 594mm SRA1 640 x 900mm B1 720 x 1020mm
Specials
These are the line or spot colours (Pantone), not made up out of the four colour process.
Set Up
Mailing terminology, machine set up and preparation to print.
Saddle Stitch
The binding of booklets by stapling the pages on the folded spine.
Scoring
Impressing a line in a sheet of board to aid folding.
Screen Angles
The placement of halftone screens to avoid unwanted moiree patterns. Frequently used angles are cyan 105°, magenta 75°, yellow 90° and black 45°.
Screen Ruling
A measurement of the number of lines of dots per inch on a halftone screen.
Simplex
Mailing terminology - laser printing the sheet one side only.
Scrum
Unwanted ink marks in the non-images areas.
Self Cover
A cover which is the same stock as the inner pages of the book ie. not made from heavier weight paper or board.
Show Through
An undesirable effect whereby the printing on one side of a sheet is able to be seen from the other side. This might occur if a paper of insufficient capacity is used or there is heavy ink coverage on the other side.
Stock
A general terms for unprinted paper or other material to be printed.
Substrate
Another word for the material the job will be printed onto not paper specific.
Screen
A screen is a thin transparent film onto which is printed a very fine matrix. A screen enables a continuous tone image such as a photograph or transparency, which cannot be reproduced by most printing process, to be broken down into tiny dots which can be printed and which from a normal viewing distance give the illusion of continuous tone. Screens are also used to print tints of solid colours by altering the size or spacing of the dots. Screens are referred to in terms of DPI (dots per inch) or dots per centimetre and the finer the screen, the better the quality of reproduction.
Swatch
A colour specimen.
T
Thermography
A printing process in which slow drying ink is applied to the paper and whilst the ink is still wet lightly dusted with a powder. The paper then passes through a source of heat where the powder melts and fuses with the ink to produce a raised tactile surface. A quality process used when a little extra is called for as high-quality invitations etc.
TIFF - Tagged Image File format
A graphic file format supported by almost all computer applications and widely used in the business for photographic images and line illustration. The format is non-lossy so is much preferred over other formats such as JPEG for high quality photographic type images used in print.
Trim Marks
Marks placed on the larger sized sheets to indicate where the pages should be trimmed to the finished size.
True Type Font
A PC font format used to store typefaces in a computer file format.
Type Size
The distance between the bottom and the top of the type, usually measured in points.
Toner
A dispersion of concentrated pigment or dye used to manufacture, strengthen or modify the colour of and ink.
Tracking
In and electrostatic printer a dirty roller can mark the print, leaving track like marks, sometimes called 'tramlines'. Also, in electrographic printing, this terms refers to side-to-side movement of the media on the printer, caused by the tension in the printer string-up.
U
Up
A term used to describe how many printed items can be produced on a larger single sheet, eg. business cards may typically be printed 10 up on an A4 sheet.
UV Coating
A very slick, glossy coating applied to the printed paper surface and dried on press with ultraviolet (UV) light. The slick surface of UV coating makes it eye-catching and therefore very popular for printing the covers of paperback novels.
V
Varnish
There are two types of varnish - litho varnish and UV varnish. The litho varnish is a machine process, which is performed, on a printing press at the same time as printing. It can be used for two purposes - to aid the look of the print or to avoid 'set off'. This is a problem that occurs when ink is not dry and sheets rub against each other. The ink is then smudged onto the sheets stacked below it. The varnish seals the ink into the paper so that smudging is virtually eliminated. UV varnish is very similar to laminating. It produces a high gloss or matt coating. It is not produced on a conventional printing machine, but is a separate process.
Vignette
A photo or illustration in which the tones fade gradually away until they blend with the background colour they are printed on.
W
Wet Proof
These are the most accurate proofs. They are produced on the machine that the finished job will be printed on and use the same plates that will be used on the printing press. These proofs are produced on the same substrate as the final job. They are 95% accurate. They are the most expensive proofs to produce.
Wash Up
The procedure of cleaning the ink from all the ink rollers etc. on the press, either at the end of the working day or to prepare the press for the next colour of ink eg. between printing the second colour on a two-colour job.
Watermark
A translucent logo, visible when the paper is held up to the light, incorporated into the paper during the manufacturing process. Typically found on higher quality paper for business stationery. You can have your own company watermark, however, the paper mills specify a minimum making of app. 1 tonne of paper.
Web Press
A printing press that prints on rolls of paper passes through the press in one continuous piece, as opposed to separate sheets of paper. Commonly used for printing newspapers and other similar high volume work.
Weight
Weight is a term used in typography to describe a typeface's thickness or degree of boldness etc. examples are light, normal, bold, heavy black etc.
Work and Turn
A printing terms used for a job in which sheets are printed then turned over and printed on the opposite side to back them us using the same printing plate.
Wove (paper)
A quality smooth paper made on finely textured wire that gives the paper a gentle patterned finish, suitable for high quality business stationery.
Woodfree
Woodfree is a description of pulp and paper meaning that they contain little or no mechanically ground fibres. Implies that fibres are chemically treated, thereby eliminating lignin (the substance that binds wood fibres together in the tree) and making the product purer, whiter and stronger. Woodfree is an historical paper-making term shortened from 'groundwood-free' and does not denote a paper or pulp made from materials other than wood.
Woodpulp
Wood reduced to a pulp for subsequent papermaking processes; can be mechanical, chemical or combination - TMP and CTMP.
Wove Finish
A sheet with impressions in it formed by a dandy roll covered with woven wire.
Z
ZIP Drive/Disk
A proprietary form of high capacity data storage device made by lomega. The disks are available in 100mb and 250mb capacity disks and, as the disks are not compatible with a standard floppy drive, an internal or external ZIP drive is required to read and write to the disks.
ZIP - file format
A compressed file format that can be used to compress ie. lower the file size or one or more files into a ZIP archive. Depending on the file formats within the archive, varying degrees of compression can be achieved. The ZIP format can be used simply for storage, or can be used to compress files to fit on a disk that they might otherwise be too big for, or for sending over the internet - saving time due to the smaller file size.