Glossary
of terms
'A'
sizes
A standard set
by the ISO (International Standards Organisation) for specifying
paper sizes. A4 is the most familiar size; A5 is half A4,
A6 is half A5 and so on.
Artwork
Everything that
is intended to be printed, including the text, logos, photographs,
diagrams etc.
Bleed
To extend an image
or area of colour beyond where the finished printed item
will be cut to size, so as to avoid unintentional and unsightly
white borders. A typical bleed is 3mm on all sides, so
a 210 x 297mm A4 sheet will actually measure 216 x 303mm
with bleed.
Blocking
Blocking occurs
when too much ink is laid down on a printed sheet, resulting
in the ink not drying thoroughly before the next sheet
drops on to it: consequently the sheets stick together
and are damaged when separated. Our pre-flight check (see
below) ensures none of your colours are composed of an
excess ink mixture, so blocking is no longer an issue.
Body
The text in a brochure,
newsletter, report etc. which is the main reading material,
excluding the major headings and chapter/section titles.
Calender
A process whereby
paper pulp is pressed between heavy rollers during its
manufacture to create an extra-smooth surface.
Carbonless
Paper
A specially
treated paper which transfers an image from the top sheet
onto subsequent sheet(s) via pressure, usually from a ballpoint
pen. Used for multi-part forms which are also known as
NCR (No Carbon Required) sets.
Cast
An undesirable altering
of the entire spectrum of colours in a photograph, most
often caused by supplying photographs in the wrong colour
mode (ie. not CMYK).
CMYK
Abbreviation for
cyan, magenta, yellow and key (black); the four process
colours from which a very wide range of colour blends can
be achieved. Around 90% of the work we produce employs
the CMYK printing process because it is very economical
and produces excellent results. See our article about
different
kinds of colour printing for a more detailed
explanation.
To organise
several printed sheets into a specific sequence, such as
arranging twelve leaves (sheets) into a calendar prior
to them being punched and bound together.
Composite
A print-ready
file which contains all of the colour information for each
of the four process colours (cyan, magenta, yellow and
black). Where a job is to be printed in a different way,
such as in two specific ink colours, separations (qv.)
may be preferable, but your designer will always advise
you accordingly and help with any technical aspects.
Crop
Marks
Small lines which
show the guillotine operator where to trim a printed sheet.
The crop marks are cut away as part of the trimming process
and do not appear on the finished prints.
Die-Cutting
A way of cutting
irregular shapes from sheets of paper or card using a specially-made
forme (qv.).
dpi
Abbreviation for dots
per inch; a measure of the number of dots or pixels in
a file to be printed. As a guideline, files intended for
us to print should be at the very least 300dpi, ideally
600dpi. We generate our own artwork for customers at 1,200dpi.
EPS
Encapsulated PostScript,
a file format ideal for logos and diagrams as it preserves
the quality of the original image no matter how large it
is scaled.
Fold
Marks
Similar to crop
marks (qv.), fold marks are small indications on a printed
sheet to show where it should be folded. Fold marks are
removed during the trimming process and do not appear on
the finished printed job.
Forme
A board mounted
with flexible steel blades, moulded into a series of curves
and straight lines, used for die-cutting shaped leaflets,
handouts and cards.
FSC
Forest Stewardship
Council, the organisation which monitors and accredits
forestry operations which produce paper and timber products
in an environmentally responsible way. All of our paper
and card is made from European FSC approved sources where
more trees are planted than are felled. Please see our
Environmental
Statement for more information about the papers,
inks and energy sources we use.
(1) A type of paper
or card coated with a very fine layer of clay to achieve
a very smooth, partly reflective printing surface. (2)
A plastic film applied most commonly to business cards
and postcards to give a bright sheen.
gsm
Grams per square metre,
also written as GSM, gm or gm2. Generally, the
higher the gsm the thicker the paper or card. Typical office
paper is 80gsm.
Laid
A finish used on
luxury papers consisting of densely packed parallel ridges
running the length of the sheet to simulate the feel of
handmade paper.
Laminate
A very thin plastic
film applied to card products to give extra protection
against moisture and handling and to improve the appearance
and feel of the finished product.
Leaf
A sheet of paper
in a booklet or book; not the same as a page. An A4 leaf
folded in half forms four A5 pages, so a 24 page booklet
will comprise six leaves.
Metal
FX
A printing effect
which achieves metallic-looking colours by laying down
a very fast-drying silver ink before printing conventional
colours on top. In this way, any number of metallic colours
can be used without the cost associated with mixing metallic
Pantone colours (qv) specially for the job.
Moiré
A visual phenomenon
where undesirable stripes or curves appear in areas of
colour as a result of the tiny dots of ink creating interference
patterns. We have eliminated the risk of moiré by
using stochastic dot screening (qv.) for all of our full
colour work.
Pantone
Colours
Pantone is a company
which produces mixing formulas, colour swatches and other
products to allow customers to specify colours for a print
job, and for printers to mix the necessary inks accurately.
Pantone colours are specified with a three or four digit
number and are often referred to as spot colours.
Perfect
Bind
Binding a booklet
or book using a combination of folding, gluing and compressing,
rather than stitching (stapling). Look at the spine of
any magazine for an example of what perfect binding looks
like.
Plate
A sheet of aluminium
which has been subject to a laser from a computer-to-plate
machine, and which transfers ink via a secondary roller
to the sheet of paper to be printed.
Point
A unit of measure
commonly used for typefaces. One point is one seventy-second
of an inch (0.139 inches; 0.353 millimetres).
Proof
A test print or
on-screen visualisation of how a finished job will look,
intended to be checked for errors which are then corrected
before the print job is run.
Ream
500 sheets of paper.
Registration
Perfect or
near-perfect alignment of each ink colour applied by a
printing press in relation to the placement of other colours
and the edges of the sheet. If colours are applied out
of alignment with each other, the printing is said to be
'out of register'.
Resolution
Reverse
Printing something,
especially text, by applying an area of solid colour where
the text is formed by an absence of ink, allowing the underlying
paper colour to show through. The most obvious example
is white text on a black background. The effect is called
'reversing out'.
RGB
Red, green, blue;
the three colours of light used by computer monitors to
create colours. This contrasts with cyan, magenta, yellow
and black, the colours of ink used in most full-colour
printing, and explains why colours on-screen are rarely
an accurate match for printed colours. See our article
about
different
kinds of colour printing for a more detailed
explanation.
A paper finish which
is not as shiny as gloss, but is nevertheless coated and
therefore has a more vibrant finish than a matt (uncoated)
paper. Sometimes referred to as a 'satin' finish.
Stitching
A method of binding
booklets by folding the leaves and forcing metal wires
through the spine, where they are cut and folded over.
The finished effect looks almost identical to everyday
staples.
Separation
A separation
in a file ready for print produces one plate and therefore
one ink colour. A job which comprises (say) black and yellow
would therefore consist of two separations.
SDS
Stochastic Dot Screening,
a method of producing very sharp images and text using
lasers to create printing plates, rather than the conventional
method of using photographic film and etching chemicals.
SDS typically uses dots of ink 30 times smaller than the
film method.
Spot
Colour
A single colour of
ink. Some colours, such as metallics and fluorescents,
cannot be accurately reproduced using the process system
of cyan, magenta, yellow and black and must be mixed specially,
often according to the Pantone system. Such colours, printed
separately from any others, are said to be spot colours.
Spot
UV
The process of
adding gloss varnish to certain parts of a page, so that
the majority of the sheet is unglossy with selected images
or text picked out with a gloss finish. Spot UV effects
work best when used sparingly, or the impact is lost.
TIFF
File
A file format for
storing images, ideal for printing since the compression
does not cause the same distortions as JPG or GIF compression.
TIFF images are also capable of storing four colour data
for CMYK printing, which results in very large file sizes
but highly predictable and controllable printed results.
Trim
Size
The final size of
a printed piece. A business card may have started out as
part of a much larger sheet, but its trim size (in Europe)
is 85mm by 55mm.
This
article is available in PDF (Adobe Portable Document Format) if you
prefer to read it offline. Please consider the environment before printing
it. 
