Print Glossary - Jargon Buster
Art Paper
Also known as coated paper, it has a coating usually of china clay. Art paper comes in gloss, silk or matt and is normally used for products such as brochures, high quality flyers, folders and prospectus’s and annual reports.
Backing Up
Printing the reverse side of a sheet already printed on one side.
Black and White
Printed in single colour (black).
Bleed
Printed area which extends off the trimmed area. It is not possible to print all the way to the edge of the paper sheet. In order to achieve this it is necessary to print a larger area than is required and then trim the paper down. If you are using a professional studio then this should be taken care of, but if you are having a go yourself with Publisher or any other artwork programme then this is something you need to remember. Generally allow approximately 4mm.
Board
Thick paper over 170gsm in weight, commonly used for folders, brochure covers etc.
Bond Paper
A basic uncoated stock, often used for copying or laser printers. The better quality bond papers can be used for letterheads or business stationery.
CMYK
Cyan (blue), Magenta (red), Yellow and Black - used as the basic colours in the printing industry. See ‘Four Colour Process'.
Coated Stock
See art paper
Collate
To bring together and organise printed matter in a specific order.
Crop Marks
In printing, marks placed on the copy to indicate the edge of the finished job. Used as a guide when cutting (or trimming) documents to finished size.
Die-Cutting
The process of cutting a shape in or cutting out some of the printed matter. It can be done with steel rules or with a specially made tool called a die. The most common use is on sticky labels. If they have round corners they have been die cut.
Digital Printing
Printing process in which information is transferred from a computer directly onto paper, without the need for film and printing plates. Digital printing is very cost-effective for small print runs and allows special techniques such as personalisation and printing-on-demand. This is the fastest growing area in printing as quality improves month by month. Even print industry veterians can find it difficult to tell the difference between the best digital print and conventional litho print.
Dots Per Inch (DPI)
Measure of the resolution of input devices such as scanners, display devices such as monitors, and output devices such as laser printers, digital printing presses and monitors, as well as printed matter. The more dots per inch the higher the resolution and the sharper the print.
Duplex
In printing doing two things at once – such as printing both sides of material in one pass (also known as perfecting) or printing the same image twice to halve the run length.
Encapsulation
A form of protective enclosure for papers and other flat objects; involves placing the item between two sheets of transparent polyester film (available in various thicknesses) that are subsequently sealed around all edges. Generally used for items such as menus.
Finishing
Any process that follows the actual printing. Can include trimming, folding, creasing, stitching, binding.
Flexographic
A printing technique where a rubber or polymer plate comes in direct contact with the material that is being printed. Traditionally the cheap and nasty version of printing, progress over the last twenty years means that it is now the accepted means of production for on roll labels and most packaging products.
Flyer
A small leaflet, normally designed to be given away, that promotes a product or a service.
Four-Colour Process
The most common system for producing full colour print. The four ink colours are Cyan (blue), Magenta (red), Yellow and Black - often referred to as CMYK. The inks can be printed and combined in a variety of different proportions to produce a wide range of colours (See also indichrome.)
Full Colour Printing
See ‘ 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 is 80gsm, a good letterhead paper might be 120 gsm, a postcard would be about 300gsm. It is the normal way of specifying paper weight in the UK.
Indichrome
A printing process that adds two colours, violet and orange to the normal four process colours. This increases the number of pantone colours that can be matched in their “true” form by process printing, and is especially useful in digital printing where special coloured toners or inks to match a house colour are either impractical or impossible. In litho printing, special colours can be matched more easily by an ink mix or by buying in the ink ready mixed.
Laid Paper
Uncoated paper often used for business stationery which has a textured pattern of parallel lines similar to hand made paper. Compare to Wove Paper.
Lamination
A plastic film bonded by heat and pressure to a printed sheet for protection. Available in matt or gloss finish. Generally used on covers of catalogues and brochures, and folders.
Landscape
An oblong artwork or photograph where horizontal dimension is greater than the vertical.
Leaflet
A leaflet usually consists of a printed sheet of paper not larger than international standard A4 in size. Leaflets are used to convey information and are commonly used by companies, organisations and individuals to advertise products, services, events and activities..
Lithographic Printing (litho)
A conventional (non-digital) print process. The process works by first transferring an image to thin metal, paper, or plastic printing plates. Rollers apply oil-based ink and water to the plates. Only the inked image portion is transferred to a rubber blanket that then transfers the image onto the paper as it passes between it and another cylinder beneath the paper.
Micron
Although paper is usually measured in grams per square metre (weight), it is sometimes measured in microns (thickness). A micron is unit of measure equal to one millionth of a metre or .00004
Pantone
Pantone, Pantone Matching System and PMS + are Pantone Inc’s industry-standard trademarks for colour standards, colour data, colour reproduction and colour reproduction materials, and other colour related products and services, meeting its specifications, control and quality requirements.
PDF
Portable Document Format - The industry standard for saving files in an acceptable format. Quick, cheap and increasingly stable, often used for viewing proofs and for supply of final artwork. The version to print from should always be hi-resolution.
Perfect Bound
A way of adhesive binding multi-section jobs. Individual sections are collected together and the spine is ground off (typically 3mm). Glue is then applied to the spine and a cover pulled on before the product is trimmed to size.
Portrait
An upright, oblong artwork or photograph where vertical dimension is greater than the horizontal.
Pre-Press
All procedures (and costs) associated with bringing a job to press, such as design, artwork, proofs, set-up etc. Has replaced “reprographics” as the normal term for these activities. Nowadays is always done with the use of computers, very often on Apple macs rather than PCs.
Proof
A version of the document to be produced for the client to sign off as ready to print and the printer to run to. Normally produced from a digital printer and only colour correct if specified by the customer. Nowadays proofs are often supplied as a low resolution pdf for checking on screen or for the client to output. Please note that these proofs are never colour correct.
Ream
Five hundred sheets of paper.
RGB
Red, green, blue additive primary colours. When designing for printing it is rarely correct to use RGB. Use CMYK instead.
Saddle Stitch
In binding, to fasten a booklet by wiring it (stapling) through the middle fold of the sheets. Normal saddle stitching has two staples/stitches.
Score
To impress or indent a mark in the paper, to make folding easier and stop the print from cracking. This process is used on board and not generally on paper stocks.
Spiral Binding
A binding, as used in notebooks, in which the pages are fastened together by a spiral of wire or plastic that coils through a series of holes punched along the edge of the document.
Spot Varnish
A way of highlighting an area of a page by selectively applying a gloss varnish to it. Can look very classy on top of matt lamination.
Stock
Paper or other material to be printed.
Trim Marks
See ‘Crop Marks’.
UV Varnish
Varnish applied to a stock and dried by means of ultra violet lamps. Is normally the method of spot varnishing as well as an overall varnish.
Wove Paper
Uncoated paper often used for business stationery which has no obvious surface texture or pattern. Compare to Laid Paper.
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