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Glossary of Print Terms

Printing, like most industries, has it's own 'jargon'. That's why we've created this page. 

Artwork

All artwork is digitally designed using photographs and images. All the elements are assembled using page layout software. Proofs can be made using colour laser or inkjet printers. The computer then separates the 'artwork' and produces the plates for printing.

Bleed

Printing that extends to the edge of a sheet or page after trimming. The file should be set up so there is at least 3mm bleed all around, and the trim area clearly marked.

Blind Embossing

A type of embossing where no ink is used. The design or text is only visible as a raised area on the paper.

Bond/Laser

A basic paper, often used for copying or laser printers. The better quality bond papers, with higher rag content, can be used for letterheads.

Celloglazing

A plastic coating which protects the printed surface and gives a gloss or matt finish. Most paperback books have laminated covers.Celloglaze material is approximately half the thickness of other laminates, e.g. poster lamination.

CMYK

Shorthand for the colours used in Four Colour Process Printing - cyan, yellow, magenta and black.

Coated

Paper which has received a coating to achieve a special finish.

Collating

The process of assembling the various sectors or sheets of a document in the correct order.

Colour Separation

Separating a colour job into the elements required fro printing e.g. CMYK for 4-colour printing.

Computer-to-Plate (CTP)

A printing technology in which digital files are output directly to the printing plate. This compares to older technology using photographic film to create the plate. CTP eliminates the need for film and the chemicals associated with it.

Crease

A printed job can be creased mechanically to make folding easier. There are times when you might want a printed piece delivered flat for ease of storage and then do the folding yourself, manually.

Die-cutting

The process of cutting irregular shapes in paper using a die, or shaped cutting tool.

Digital Printing

There are many high-end digital printers that can be used cost effectively for short runs. The quality obtainable is not yet up to lithography standards, but is improving steadily and is adequate for many purposes. Because these systems use an inherently four colour process there is no cost saving to be made from using one-or two-colour designs.

DPI

Dots per inch used to express the resolution of a printer, that is, the number of individual dots of ink within a linear one inch space.

Drilling

Making the holes in paper for use in a ring binder. Drills can neatly perforate a much greater thickness of paper than can the kind of hole punch you have in the office.

Dummy (1)

A plain white mock-up of a booklet or brochure – not printed but made up using the intended stock. Most printers will make up a dummy if you ask nicely. This is the best way to get a feel for the finished product.

Dummy (2)

A mock-up produced by the designer to show how the finished job will look. This will usually involve colour prints from various sources and will therefore not be on the intended stock.

Duotone

A two-colour halftone sometimes used in Two Colour Printing. Produces a tinted effect using a black & white original.

Embossing

Stamping a design into the paper to produce a raised effect.

Flattening

Flattening is a process that needs to happen when Illustrator/InDesign transparencies are used. This includes drop shadows, transparencies etc.

There is a choice in your postscripting/creating pdf, to choose a level of quality of images being flattened which needs to be considered if file going to print or to the web.

FTP

File Transfer Protocol, a means to transfer data from computer to computer over the Internet or a network.

Finishing

Any process that follows the actual printing. Includes folding, creasing, stitching, binding etc.

Folio

Printer's technical term for what the rest of the world calls a page number.

Four Colour Process Printing

The most common system for producing full colour print. Originally the artwork and originals were separated using filters and four printing plates were produced.

The four ink colours are Cyan (Blue), Magenta(Red),Yellow and Black - often referred to as CMYK. Because the inks used are translucent, they can be overprinted and combined in a variety of different proportions to produce a wide range of colours.

The vast majority of magazines and colour books are produced using four-colour process.

gsm

Abbreviation for grams per square metre. This indicates the weight of paper or other stock. For example, a typical photocopier paper would be 80gsm – a good letterhead paper might be 100 gsm – a postcard would be about 250 gsm.

Imagesetter

A very high-resolution output device that produces film which is used to expose printing plates. Imagesetters can also be used to expose images directly to plate material in CTP printing.

Imposition

The layout of pages on the printed sheet so that they are in the correct order when the sheet is folded up and trimmed. There are many different imposition layouts – some of them very complex.

Inkjet

A type of computer printer that works by propelling minuscule droplets of ink onto the paper. Large format professional inkjet printers can print on wide, continuous rolls of paper to create banners and posters.

Interleaving

Introducing alternate sheets of blank paper between the printed sheets as they come off the press to prevent set off.

Landscape

The orientation of the page so that the long edge is along the bottom. Sometimes referred to as horizontal. The opposite of portrait.

Line artwork/Bitmap

Artwork which contains no halftones such as company symbols or simple diagrams made of solid black.

Make Ready

The processes involved in getting a press ready for a print run.

Offset Printing

Printing system where the paper does not come into contact with the printing plate. The ink is transferred from the plate to a blanket cylinder and then to the paper.

Overs

A quantity of printed material in excess of the amount ordered. It was once usual practice for a printer to charge pro rata for overs. This is much less common nowadays.

Pantone

The brand name of a colour matching system produced by Pantone Inc of the USA. It gives designers the choice to use a palette of colours that are not available in CMYK. Whilst some Pantone inks covert reasonably well to CMYK, the majority will not. PMS inks are especially good for very bright colours like orange, fluro green etc. as well as metallics like gold or silver which can't be produced out of CMYK.

Designers need to refer to the PANTONE to PROCESS book to satisfy themselves that the PMS inks will work well in CMYK.

Paper Sizes

In Australia we use the “A” series. There is a diagram at the end of this Glossary that indicates the dimensions.

Perfect Binding

A type of book binding where the pages are held in the spine by glue. Many magazines and most paperback books are perfect bound. Ideally, there should be more than 60 pages in a perfect bound book to ensure there's adequate width on the spine.

Perfecting

Printing both sides of a sheet in one pass through the press.

Pixel

Images made from digital photography or scanning are made up of pixels which are saved electronically. The number of pixels is determined by the Resolution when capturing and saving the image. The size of the pixel determines the qualityof the image, which can be manipulated in software programs for graphic design use. If an image is enlarged beyond the size of the pixels, they become blurred and lose definition. An image can be manipulated to make a higher resolution file, but this has no positive effect on the printed image.

Plate

The piece of paper, metal, plastic or rubber that holds the ink and the image to be reproduced using a printing press.

Portrait

The orientation of the page so that the short edge is along the bottom. Sometimes referred to as vertical. The opposite of landscape.

Postscript

A page-description language developed by Adobe Systems. Most files are converted to PostScript before being sent to an output device. PostScript fonts consist of two files: One contains the fonts in vector outlines (the printer font) and the other is a bitmap representation of the font for display on screen.

Preflight

The first step in prepress, preflighting ensures that all files needed for a print job (fonts, scans, et al) are present and properly formatted. The term originates from the pre-flight checklists used by pilots.

Prepress

The steps taken to prepare digital files for final printing on a printing press. These may include preflight, colour correction, imagesetting and platemaking.

Press Check

The press is stopped after a few impressions are made so the designer can see the actual output before approving the completion of the job. This is used when colour accuracy is critical.

Printing Plate

The physical plate which carries the image. These can be made from a variety of materials. At the cheaper end of the market there are paper plates which are designed to be used once and thrown away. They are very economical for short runs such as small quantities of stationery.

Proof

Any kind of print that is used to preview the job before final printing starts.

Rasterize

Graphic images, such as photographs, are made up of continuous tone pixels or points of colour which are saved in electronic format. These are referred to as Raster Graphics and can only be viewed at the Resolution used to save or capture the image, otherwise loss of quality occurs.

Registration

When printing with two or more colours it is necessary to align the different plates. This is known as registration. On the edges of an untrimmed sheet you will see small target shapes called registration marks which are used for accurate positioning. A printed piece which is out of register will have an unfocussed look.

Resolution

Image resolution describes the detail an image holds, often used as the pixel count in digital imaging. Higher resolution means more image detail.

RIP

Raster Image Processor. This usually refers to a piece of hardware that converts Post Script data to a high-resolution raster image, although every Post Script printer has a RIP as part of its built-in firmware. The term is also used to describe the process, as in, "That file won't RIP."

Run-on

Often when a printing price is quoted it is given as a figure for the basic job plus a figure for additional copies. For example the price may be 2000 copies at $300 with $25 for a 500 run-on. This enables you to calculate a range of prices for different quantities. It is very important to note that the run-on price is for copies printed at the same time as the main run.

Saddle Stitch

A simple way of assembling a small booklet or magazine with a wire stitch through the fold. You may call it stapling but printers call it stitching due to the coil of wire used to bind books, appears like a sewing stitch..

Scanner

A device for turning a piece of artwork into a digital form. Transparencies, prints and illustrations are scanned so that they can be accessed by software designed for image manipulation and page make-up.

Screen and Printer Fonts

See "Postscript," above.

Score

Heavier paper and boards need to be scored with a rule to make folding easier. Another term for score is 'crease'.

Screen Printing

This is a process where the ink is transferred to the printing surface by being squeezed through a fine fabric sheet stretched on a frame. The screen carries a stencil which defines the image area. The process can be manual or mechanical but is most suitable for short runs. Screen printing is usually used for large poster work and display material. It comes into its own when printing to difficult or unusual surfaces such as clothing or plastic objects. It is often referred to as silk screen printing although the screens are generally made from artificial fibres.

Section

A folded sheet which is assembled with others to make up a book. For example an A2 sheet will provide a section of eight A4 pages when folded twice. A 20 page booklet would therefore require two 8-page sections and one 4-page section. These sections are then saddle-stitched together. Larger booklets of, say, more than sixty pages could be perfect bound.

Set-Off

A printing fault where ink transfers from a sheet to the one below as it leaves the press creating an undesirable ghost image. This can be cured if necessary by interleaving. The machine minders hould be able to correct the problem.

Sheet Fed

A press which prints by taking up one sheet at a time. This is the system you are most likely to come across. The opposite of web printing which uses a continuous roll of paper. Newspapers are printed using web.

Short-run

Refers to the number of copies printed and often, the type of print shop used. Some printers have a minimum number of prints they will produce for a particular type of document, for example, 500 business cards. Short-run is usually fewer than this number.

Soft Proof

A proof that is viewed on a computer monitor which is adjusted to simulate printing variables such as paper colour.

Special Colours

This refers to colours which are produced using specially mixed inks from one of the commercially available colour ranges such as Pantone, DIC or Focoltone. They are most commonly used when using Two Colour Printing.

To print colours outside the range of four colour process it is necessary to use special inks. If for example, the exact colour of a company logo could not be achieved from a CMYK mix then it would be necessary to print a fifth plate with the special ink. It is not unusual, where an elaborate effect is required, to print in six or more colours. There are presses which are capable of printing eight different plates in a single run through the machine.

It is worth bearing in mind when choosing a colour for a company logo that sooner or later you will want to print a colour brochure using four colour process. A vivid ink which you have chosen from the Pantone book may not have an acceptable CMYK equivalent. You may be forced to change the company colour or incur the ongoing expense of a fifth plate.

Spot Colour

Refers to an extra single colour ink. Spot colour can be used as a second colour on an otherwise black and white piece, or can be a varnish that is applied in addition to a full-colour job.

Stock

A general term for any paper or board which is used as a printed surface.

Trim Marks

Small lines that indicate the size of the printed material in its finished stage.

UV Varnishing

A method of adding a gloss finish to printed surfaces. The advantage of UV varnishing is that it is similar to printing an extra colour and can be applied to selected areas to produce special effects. The UV refers to the Ultra-Violet lamp under which the varnished sheets pass for rapid drying.

Vector Art

Similar to Line Art. Graphics and Illustrations drawn and made up of solid colour. When enlarged, these images retain their shape and quality. Logos are best designed and created this way using programs such as Corel Draw or Illustrator.

Web

Nothing to do with the internet. A web printing machine is one that accepts the paper on a large roll (the web). These are very fast presses and are only economical for long run and high volume work. Most people have seen film of newspapers being printed – this is a web process. The majority of magazines you find in the newsagent have been printed by web. The opposite of sheet fed.

Work & Turn

When a whole job is printed on one side of sheet, the sheets turned and printed again using the same plates. For example, a single sheet A4 flyer is printed with back and front adjacent to each other on one side of an SRA3 sheet. The sheets are flipped over and printed with the same plates again. When trimmed you have A4 sheets with a different image front and back. The advantage of this technique is to save a plate change and make-ready cost. You may also hear the expression Work & Tumble which is so similar as to only concern the pedantic.