A

A/W - An abbreviation for Artwork.

Accordion fold - Bindery term, two or more parallel folds which open like an accordion.

Acetate - A transparent sheet placed over artwork allowing the artist to write instructions or indicate where second colour is to be placed. (See Overlay)

Addendum - Supplementary material additional to the main body of a book and printed separately at the start or end of the text.

Against the grain - At right angles to direction of paper grain.

Air (US) - An amount of white space in a layout.

Airbrush - A mechanical painting tool producing an adjustable spray of paint driven by compressed air. Used in illustration design and photographic retouching.

Align - To line up typeset or other graphic material as specified, using a base or vertical line as the reference point.

Alphabet (length or width)  - The measurement of a complete set of lower case alphabet characters in a given type size expressed in points or picas.

Alteration: - Change in copy of specifications after production has begun.

Anodised plate - An offset printing plate with a specially treated surface to reduce wear during printing.

Apex - The point of a character where two lines meet at the top, an example of this is the point on the letter A.

Apron (US) - Additional white space allowed in the margins of text and illustrations when forming a foldout.

Art (US) - In graphic arts usage, all matter other than text material e.g. illustrations and photographs.

Art paper - A smooth coated paper obtained by adding a coating of china clay compound on one or both sides of the paper.

Artboard - Alternate term for mechanical art.

Ascender - Any part of a lower case letter extending above the x-height. For example, the upper half of the vertical in the letters b or h.

Authors corrections - Changes made to the copy by the author after typesetting but not including those made as a result of errors in keying in the copy.

B

Backing up - Printing the second side of a sheet already printed on one side.

Back slant - Letters that slant the opposite way from italic characters.

Balloon - A circle or bubble enclosing copy in an illustration. Used in cartoons.

Banding - Method of packaging printed pieces of paper using rubber or paper bands.

Bank - A lightweight writing paper.

Banner - A large headline or title extending across the full page width.

Base artwork - Artwork requiring additional components such as halftones or line drawings to be added before the reproduction stage.

Baseline - The line on which the bases of capital letters sit.

Basis weight - Weight in pounds of a ream of paper cut to the basic size for its grade.

Bed - The base on which the Forme is held when printing by Letterpress.

Bind - To fasten sheets or signatures with wire, thread, glue. or by other means.

Bindery - The finishing department of a print shop or firm specializing in finishing printed products.

Binding - The various methods used to secure loose leaves or sections in a book; e.g. saddle-stitch, perfect bound.

Black patch - Material used to mask the window area on a negative image of the artwork prior to stripping in a halftone.

Blanket cylinder - The cylinder via which the inked litho plate transfers the image to the paper. The cylinder is covered with a rubber sheet which prevents wear to the litho plate coming into contact with the paper.

Blanket - The thick rubber mat on a printing press that transfers ink from the plate to paper.

Bleed - Layout, type or pictures that extend beyond the trim marks on a page. Illustrations that spread to the edge of the paper without margins are referred to as bled off.

Blind emboss - A raised impression made without using ink or foil.

Blind embossing - An image pressed into a sheet without ink or foil.

Block in - To sketch in the main areas of an image prior to the design.

Blow up - An enlargement, most frequently of a graphic image or photograph.

Blueline - A blue photographic proof used to check position of all image elements.

Blurb - A short description or commentary of a book or author on a book jacket.

Board - Paper of more than 200gsm.

Board - Alternate term for mechanical.

Body (US) - The main text of the work but not including headlines.

Body size - The height of the type measured from the top of the tallest ascender to the bottom of the lowest descender. Normally given in points, the standard unit of type size.

Bold type - Type with a heavier darker appearance. Most typefaces have a bold face.

Bond - A sized finished writing paper of 50gsm or more. Can also be used for printing upon.

Bond & carbon - Business form with paper and carbon paper.

Bond paper - Strong durable paper grade used for letterheads and business forms.

Border - A continuous decorative design or rule surrounding the matter on the page.

Box - A section of text marked off by rules or white space and presented separately from the main text and illustrations. Longer boxed sections in magazines are sometimes referred to as sidebars.

Break for colour - Also known as a colour break. To separate mechanically or by software the parts to be printed in different colours.

Brightness - The brilliance or reflectance of paper.

Bristol board - A fine board made in various qualities for drawing.

Broadside - An original term for work printed on one side of a large sheet of paper.

Bromide - A photographic print made on bromide paper.

Bronzing - An effect produced by dusting wet ink after printing with a metallic powder.

Bulk pack - Boxing printed product without wrapping or banding.

Bulk - Thickness of paper stock in thousandths of an inch or number of pages per inch.

Bullet - A large dot preceding text to add emphasis.

Burn - Exposing a printing plate to high intensity light or placing an image on a printing plate by light.

Butt fit - Printed colours that overlap one row of dots so they appear to butt.

Butt - Joining images without overlapping.

   

C

Calendered finish - Produced by passing paper through a series of metal rollers to give a very smooth surface.

Caliper - The thickness of sheet of paper or board expressed in microns (millionths of a metre). Also the name of the tool used to make the measurement.

Caliper - Paper thickness in thousandths of an inch.

Camera ready - Artwork or pasted up material that is ready for reproduction. Cap line - an imaginary line across the top of capital letters. The distance from the the cap line to the baseline is the cap size.

Camera-ready copy - Print ready mechanical art.

Caps - An abbreviation for capital letters.

Caps and small caps - A style of type that shows capital letters used in the normal way while the body copy is set in capital letters which are of a slightly smaller size.

Caption - The line or lines of text that refer to information identifying a picture or illustration.

Carbonless - Paper coated with chemicals and dye which will produce copies without carbon paper. Also referred to as NCR (No Carbon Required).

Carbonless - Pressure sensitive writing paper that does not use carbon.

Caret marks - An indication to the printer of an omission in the copy indicated as ( ) showing the insertion.

Carload - A truck load of paper weighing 40000 pounds.

Cartridge - A thick general purpose paper used for printing, drawing and wrapping.

Case bind - A type of binding used in making hard cover books using glue.

Case bound - A hardback book made with stiff outer covers. Cases are usually covered with cloth, vinyl or leather.

Cast coated - Art paper with a exceptionally glossy coated finish usually on one side only.

Cast off - A calculation determining how much space copy will take up when typeset.

Catchline - A temporary headline for identification on the top of a galley proof.

Century Schoolbook - A popular serif typeface used in magazines and books for text setting which has a large x-height and an open appearance.

Chalking - A powdering effect left on the surface of the paper after the ink has failed to dry satisfactorily due to a fault in printing.

Character count - The number of characters; i.e. letters, figures, signs or spaces in a piece of copy, line or paragraph used as a first stage in type calculations.

Chase - A metal frame in which metal type and blocks (engravings) are locked into position to make up a page.

Chrome - A term for a transparency.

Close up - A proof correction mark to reduce the amount of space between characters or words indicated as ().

Coated paper - Printing papers which after making have had a surface coating with clay etc, to give a smoother, more even finish with greater opacity.

Cold type - Type produced without the use of characters cast from molten metal, such as on a VDU.

Collate - A finishing term for gathering paper in a precise order.

Colour bar - A quality control term regarding the spots of ink colour on the tail of a sheet.

Colour correction - Methods of improving colour separations.

Colour filter - Filters uses in making colour separations, red, blue, green.

Colour key - Colour proofs in layers of acetate.

Colour matching system - A system of formulated ink colours used for communicating colour.

Colour separations - The process of preparing artwork, photographs, transparencies, or computer generated art for printing by separating into the four primary printing colours.

Column rule - A light faced vertical rule used to separate columns of type.

Comb bind - To plastic comb bind by inserting the comb into punched holes.

Compose - To set copy into type.

Composite film - Combining two or more images on one or more pieces of film.

Concertina fold - A method of folding in which each fold opens in the opposite direction to its neighbour, giving a concertina or pleated effect.

Condensed - A style of typeface in which the characters have an elongated appearance.

Continuous tone - An image in which the subject has continuous shades of colour or grey without being broken up by dots. Continuous tones cannot be reproduced in that form for printing but must be screened to translate the image into dots.

Contrast - The degree of tones in a photograph ranging from highlight to shadow.

Copy - All furnished material or disc used in the production of a printed product.

Copyright - The right of copyright gives protection to the originator of material to prevent use without express permission or acknowledgement of the originator.

Corner marks - Marks printed on a sheet to indicate the trim or register marks.

Cover paper - A heavy printing paper used to cover books, make presentation folders, etc.

Crash number - Numbering paper by pressing an image on the first sheet which is transferred to all parts of the printed set.

Crimping - Puncture marks holding business forms together.

Cromalin - Trade name for DuPont colour proofs.

Crop marks - Printed lines showing where to trim a printed sheet.

Cropping - The elimination of parts of a photograph or other original that are not required to be printed. Cropping allows the remaining parts of the image to be enlarged to fill the space.

Cross head  - A heading set in the body of the text used to break it into easily readable sections.

Crossover - Printing across the gutter or from one page to the facing page of a publication.

Cursive - Used to describe typefaces that resemble written script.

Cut flush - A method of trimming a book after the cover has been attached to the pages.

Cutout - A halftone where the background has been removed to produce a silhouette.

Cyan - One of four standard process colours. The blue colour.

   

D

Dagger and double dagger - Symbols used mainly as reference marks for footnotes.

Dash - A short horizontal rule used for punctuation.

Densitometer - A quality control devise to measure the density of printing ink.

Density - The degree of colour or darkness of an image or photograph.

Descender - Any part of a lower case letter that extends below the x-height, as in the case of y and j.

Diazo - A light sensitive coating used on printing plates.

Die - A hardened steel engraving stamp used to print an inked image. Used in the production of good quality letter headings.

Die cutting - Curing images in or out of paper.

Die - Metal rule or imaged block used to cut or place an image on paper in the finishing process.

Disk Operating System (DOS) - Software for computer systems with disk drives which supervises and controls the running of programs. The operating system is booted into the computer from disk by a small program which permanently resides in the memory. Common operating systems include MS-DOS, PC-DOS (IBMs version of MS-DOS), CP/M (an operating system for older, 8-bit computers), Unix and BOS.

Display type - Larger type used for headings etc. Normally about 18 point or larger.

Dot gain or spread - A term used to explain the difference in size between the dot on film v paper.

Dot matrix printer - A printer in which each character is formed from a matrix of dots. They are normally impact systems, i.e. a wire is fired at a ribbon in order to leave an inked dot on the page, but thermal and electro-erosion systems are also used.

Dot - An element of halftones. Using a loupe you will see that printed pictures are made many dots.

Double burn - Exposing a plate to multiple images.

Double density - A method of recording on floppy disks using a modified frequency modulation process that allows more data to be stored on a disk.

Double page spread - Two facing pages of newspaper or magazine where the textual material on the left hand side continues across to the right hand side. Abbreviated to DPS.

Downloadable fonts - Type faces which can be stored on a disk and then downloaded to the printer when required for printing. These are, by definition, bit-mapped fonts and, therefore, fixed in size and style.

DPI (Dots Per Inch) - The measurement of resolution for page printers, phototypesetting machines and graphics screens. Currently graphics screens reproduce 60 to 100dpi, most page printers work at 300dpi and typesetting systems operate at 1,000dpi and above.

Draw-down - A sample of ink and paper used to evaluate ink colours.

Drawn on - A method of binding a paper cover to a book by drawing the cover on and gluing to the back of the book.

Drop cap - A large initial letter at the start of the text that drops into the line or lines of text below.

Drop-out - Portions of artwork that do not print.

Dry transfer (lettering) - Characters, drawings, etc, that can be transferred to the artwork by rubbing them off the back of the transfer sheet. Best known is Letraset.

Dummy - A rough layout of a printed piece showing position and finished size.

Duotone - A halftone picture made up of two printed colours.

Dye transfer - A photographic colour print using special coated papers to produce a full colour image. Can serve as an inexpensive proof.

Dylux - Photographic paper made by DuPont and used for bluelines.

 

E

EGA (Enhanced Graphics Adapter) - A graphics standard for the PC which can be added or built into a system to give sharper characters and improved colour with the correct display device. Standard EGA resolution is 640 by 350 dots in any 16 out of 64 colours.

Egyptian - A term for a style of type faces having square serifs and almost uniform thickness of strokes.

Eight sheet - A poster measuring 60 x 80in (153 x 203cm) and, traditionally, made up of eight individual sheets.

Electronic Publishing - A generic term for the distribution of information which is stored, transmitted and reproduced electronically. Teletext and Videotext are two examples of this technology in its purest form, i.e. no paper. Desktop publishing forms just one part of the electronic publishing market.

Em - In printing terms it is a square unit with edges equal in size to the chosen point size. It gets its name from the letter M which originally was as wide as the type size.

Em dash - A dash used in punctuation the length of one em.

Emboss - Pressing an image into paper so that it will create a raised relief.

Embossing - Relief images formed by using a recessed die.

Emulsion - Light sensitive coating found on printing plates and film.

En - A unit of measurement that is half as wide as an em.

En dash - A dash approximately half the width of an em dash.

End papers - The four page leaves at the front and end of a book which are pasted to the insides of the front and back covers (boards).

Epson emulation - The industry standard control codes for dot matrix printers were developed by Epson and virtually all software packages and most dot matrix printers either follow or improve on these codes.

Eurobind - A patented method of binding perfect bound books so they will open and lay flatter.

Exception dictionary - In word processing or desktop publishing this is a store of pre-hyphenated words that do not conform to the usual rules contained in the hyphenation and justification program (H & J).Some programs, PageMaker for example, only use an exception dictionary.

Expanded type - A typeface with a slightly wider body giving a flatter appearance.

Express - A printer control language developed by OASYS.

 

F

Face - An abbreviation for typeface referring to a family in a given style.

Facsimile transmission - The process of converting graphic images into electronic signals.

Filler - Extra material used to complete a column or page, usually of little importance.

Film rip - See Rip film.

Flag - The designed title of a newspaper as it appears at the top of page one.

Flat - An assembly of negatives taped to masking materials for platemaking.

Flexography - A rotary letterpress process printing from rubber or flexible plates and using fast drying inks. Mainly used for packaging.

Floating accent - An accent mark which is set separately from the main character and is then placed either over or under it.

Flood - To cover a printed page with ink, varnish, or plastic coating.

Flop - The reverse side of an image.

Floppy disk - See disk

Flush left - Copy aligned along the left margin.

Flush right - Copy aligned along the right margin.

Flyer - An inexpensively produced circular used for promotional distribution.

Foil blocking - A process for stamping a design on a book cover without ink by using a coloured foil with pressure from a heated die or block.

Foil emboss - Foil stamping and embossing a image on paper with a die.

Foil stamping - Using a die to place a metallic or pigmented image on paper.

Foil - A metallic or pigmented coating on plastic sheets or rolls used in foil stamping and foil embossing.

Font (or fount) - A complete set of characters in a typeface.

Form letter - Used in word processing to describe a repetitive letter in which the names and addresses of individuals are automatically generated from a data base or typed individually.

Forme - Type and blocks assembled in pages and imposed in a metal chase ready for printing.

Four colour process - Printing in full colour using four colour separation negatives - yellow, magenta, cyan and black.

French fold - A sheet which has been printed on one side only and then folded with two right angle folds to form a four page uncut section.

French fold - Two folds at right angles to each other.

Full measure - A line set to the entire line length.

Full point - A full stop.

G

Galley proof - Proofs taken from the galleys before being made up into pages.

Galley proof - Text copy before it is put into a mechanical layout or desktop layout.

Galleys - The printing term for long metal trays used to hold type after it had been set and before the press run.

Gang - Getting the most out of a printing press by using the maximum sheet size to print multiple images or jobs on the same sheet. A way to save money.

Gatefold - An oversize page where both sides fold into the gutter in overlapping layers. Used to accommodate maps into books.

Gathering - The operation of inserting the printed pages, sections or signatures of a book in the correct order for binding.

GEM - Digital Researchs Graphics Environment Manager. A graphical interface designed both to make the operation of software simpler for the non-expert and to allow programs to communicate with one another. Two key desktop publishing packages, Ventura and DRs own GEM Desktop Publisher operate under this environment.

Generation - Stages of reproduction from original copy. A first generation reproduction yields the best quality.

Ghost bars - A quality control method used to reduce ghosted image created by heat or chemical contamination.

Ghosting - A faint printed image that appears on a printed sheet where it was not intended. More often than not this problem is a function of graphical design. It is hard to tell when or where ghosting will occur. Sometimes you can see the problem developing immediately after printing the sheet, other times the problem occurs while drying. However the problem occurs it is costly to fix, if it can be fixed. Occasionally it can be eliminated by changing the colour sequence, the inks, the paper, changing to a press with a drier, printing the problem area in a separate pass through the press or changing the racking (reducing the number of sheets on the drying racks). Since it is a function of graphical design, the buyer pays for the increased cost.

Gloss ink - For use in litho and letterpress printing on coated papers where the ink will dry without penetration.

Gloss - A shiny look reflecting light.

Golden ratio - The rule devised to give proportions of height to width when laying out text and illustrations to produce the most optically pleasing result.

Gothic - Typefaces with no serifs and broad even strokes.

Grain - The direction in which the paper fiber lie.

Gravure - A rotary printing process where the image is etched into the metal plate attached to a cylinder. The cylinder is then rotated through a trough of printing ink after which the etched surface is wiped clean by a blade leaving the non-image area clean. The paper is then passed between two rollers and pressed against the etched cylinder drawing the ink out by absorption.

Greeking - A software device where areas of grey are used to simulate lines of text. One of desktop publishings less clever methods of getting round the slowness of high resolution displays on the PC.

Greyscale - A range of luminance values for evaluating shading through white to black. Frequently used in discussions about scanners as a measure of their ability to capture halftone images. Basically the more levels the better but with correspondingly larger memory requirements.

Grid - A systematic division of a page into areas to enable designers to ensure consistency. The grid acts as a measuring guide and shows text, illustrations and trim sizes.

Grippers - The metal fingers on a printing press that hold the paper as it passes through the press.

GSM - Grams per square metre. The unit of measurement for paper weight.

Guard - A narrow strip of paper or linen pasted to a single leaf to allow sewing into a section for binding.

Gutter - The central blank area between left and right pages.

 

Hairline rule - The thinnest rule that can be printed.

Hairline - A very thin line or gap about the width of a hair or 1/100 inch.

Half up - Artwork one and a half times the size which it will be reproduced.

Halftone - An illustration reproduced by breaking down the original tone into a pattern of dots of varying size. Light areas have small dots and darker areas or shadows have larger dots.

Halftone screen - A glass plate or film placed between the original photograph and the film to be exposed. The screen carries a network of parallel lines. The number of lines to the inch controls the coarseness of the final dot formation. The screen used depends on the printing process and the paper to be used, the higher the quality the more lines can be used.

Halftone - Converting a continuous tone to dots for printing.

Hanging punctuation - Punctuation that is allowed to fall outside the margins instead of staying within the measure of the text.

Hard copy - The output of a computer printer, or typed text sent for typesetting.

Hard disk - A rigid disk sealed inside an airtight transport mechanism. information stored may be accessed more rapidly than on floppy disks and far greater amounts of data may be stored. Often referred to as Winchester disks.

Hardback - A case bound book with a separate stiff board cover.

Head - The margin at the top of a page.

Helvetica - A sans serif typeface.

Hickey - Reoccurring unplanned spots that appear in the printed image from dust, lint, dried ink.

Hickies - A dust particle sticking to the printing plate or blanket which appears on the printed sheet as a dark spot surrounded by an halo.

High-bulk paper - A paper made thicker than its standard basis weight.

Highlight - The lightest area in a photograph or illustration.

Highlight - The lightest areas in a picture or halftone.

House style - The style of preferred spelling, punctuation, hyphenation and indentation used in a publishing house or by a particular publication to ensure consistent typesetting.

 

I

Icons - Pictorial images used on screen to indicate utility functions, files, folders or applications software. The icons are generally activated by an on-screen pointer controlled by a mouse or trackball.

Image area - Portion of paper on which ink can appear.

Imposition - Refers to the arrangement of pages on a printed sheet, which when the sheet is finally printed on both sides, folded and trimmed, will place the pages in their correct order.

imPRESS - A page description language developed by Imagen and supported by over 60 software products including Crystal , TeX , Superpage and AutoCAD. Almost certainly the first commercially available PDL.

Impression cylinder - The cylinder of a printing machine which brings the paper into contact with the with the printing plate or blanket cylinder.

Impression - Putting an image on paper.

Imprint - The name and place of the publisher and printer required by law if a publication is to be published. Sometimes accompanied by codes indicating the quantity printed, month/year of printing and an internal control number.

Imprint - Adding copy to a previously printed page.

Indicia - Postal information place on a printed product.

Ink fountain - The reservoir on a printing press that hold the ink.

Insert - An instruction to the printer for the inclusion of additional copy.

Interface - The circuit, or physical connection, which controls the flow of data between a computer and its peripherals.

International paper sizes - The International Standards Organisation (ISO) system of paper sizes is based on a series of three sizes A, B and C. Series A is used for general printing and stationery, Series B for posters and Series C for envelopes.

Interpress - Xerox Corporations page description language which was the first such product to be implemented. At present the language still has to be adopted commercially by a third party.

ISBN - International Standard Book Number. A reference number given to every published work. Usually found on the back of the title page.

Italic - Type with sloping letters.

Ivory board - A smooth high white board used for business cards etc.

 

J

JPEG - Joint Photographic Experts Group (also abbreviated jpg). JPEG is a compression technique for colour images and photographs that balances compression against loss of detail in the image. The greater the compression, the more information is lost (this is called Lossy compression).

Justify - The alignment of text along a margin or both margins. This is achieved by adjusting the spacing between the words and characters as necessary so that each line of text finishes at the same point.

 

K

K (Kilobyte) - 1024 bytes, a binary 1,000.

Keep standing - To hold type or plates ready for reprints.

Kerning - The adjustment of spacing between certain letter pairs, a and V for example, to obtain a more pleasing appearance. Not all DTP systems can achieve this.

Keyline - An outline drawn or set on artwork showing the size and position of an illustration or halftone.

Keylines - Lines on mechanical art that show position of photographs or illustrations.

Kiss die cut - To cut the top layer of a pressure sensitive sheet and not the backing.

Knock out - To mask out an image.

Kraft paper - A tough brown paper used for packing.

 

L

Laid - Paper with a watermark pattern showing the wire marks used in the paper making process. Usually used for high quality stationery.

Laid finish - Simulating the surface of handmade paper.

Laminate - A thin transparent plastic coating applied to paper or board to provide protection and give it a glossy finish.

Laminate - To cover with film, to bond or glue one surface to another.

Landscape - Work in which the width used is greater than the height. Also used to indicate the orientation of tables or illustrations which are printed sideways. See Portrait.

Laser printer (see also Page printer) - A high quality image printing system using a laser beam to produce an image on a photosensitive drum. The image is transferred on to paper by a conventional xerographic printing process. Currently, most laser printers set at 300dpi with newer models operating at up to 600dpi.

Lateral reversal - A positive or negative image transposed from left to right as in a mirror reflection of the original.

Layflat - See Eurobind.

Layout - A sketch of a page for printing showing the position of text and illustrations and giving general instructions.

Lead or Leading - Space added between lines of type to space out text and provide visual separation of the lines. Measured in points or fractions thereof. Named after the strips of lead which used to be inserted between lines of metal type.

Legend - The descriptive matter printed below an illustration, mostly referred to as a caption. Also an explanation of signs or symbols used in timetables or maps.

Letraset - A proprietary name for rub-down or dry transfer lettering used in preparing artwork.

Letterpress - A relief printing process in which a raised image is inked to produce an impression; the impression is then transferred by placing paper against image and applying pressure.

Letterset - A printing process combining offset printing with a letterpress relief printing plate.

Letterspacing - The addition of space between the letters of words to increase the line-length to a required width or to improve the appearance of a line.

Library picture - A picture taken from an existing library and not specially commissioned.

Ligature - Letters which are joined together as a single unit of type such as oe and fi.

Lightface - Type having finer strokes than the medium typeface. Not used as frequently as medium.

Line block - A letterpress printing plate made up of solid areas and lines and without tones.

Line copy - High contrast copy not requiring a halftone.

Line gauge - A metal rule used by printers. Divided into Picas it is 72 picas long (11.952in).

Linen tester - A magnifying glass designed for checking the dot image of a halftone.

Lines per inch - The number of rows of dots per inch in a halftone.

Lineup table - A table with an illuminated top used for preparing and checking alignment of page layouts and paste-ups.

Lining figures - Numerals that align on the baseline and at the top.

Linotype - Manufacturers of a range of high resolution phototypesetting machines such as the 100, 202, 300 and 500. The 100, 300 and 500 series are capable of processing PostScript files through an external RIP and typesetting desktop publishing files direct from disk at 1270dpi and beyond.

Lithography - A printing process based on the principle of the natural aversion of water to grease. The photographically prepared printing plate when being made is treated chemically so that the image will accept ink and reject water.

Logo - Short for logotype. A word or combination of letters set as a single unit. Also used to denote a specially styled company name designed as part of a corporate image.

Loose leaf - A method of binding which allows the insertion and removal of pages for continuous updating.

Loupe - A magnifying glass used to review a printed image, plate and position film.

Lower case - The small letters in a font of type.

 

M

M (Megabyte) - One million bytes.

Machine glazed (MG) - Paper with a high gloss finish on one side only.

Macro - A series of instructions which would normally be issued one at a time on the keyboard to control a program. a macro facility allows them to be stored and issued automatically by a single keystroke.

Magenta - Process red, one of the basic colours in process colour.

Magnetic ink - A magnetized ink that can be read both by humans and by electronic machines. Used in cheque printing.

Makeready - All the activities required to prepare a press for printing.

Make-up - The assembling of all elements, to form the printed image.

Making ready - The time spent in making ready the level of the printing surface by packing out under the forme or around the impression cylinder.

Manilla - A tough brown paper used to produce stationery and wrapping paper.

Manuscript (MS) - The original written or typewritten work of an author submitted for publication.

Marginal words - Call outs for directions on various parts of a business form.

Margins - The non printing areas of page.

Mark up - Copy prepared for a compositor setting out in detail all the typesetting instructions.

Mask - Opaque material or masking tape used to block-off an area of the artwork.

Mask - Blocking light from reaching parts of a printing plate.

Masthead - Details of publisher and editorial staff usually printed on the contents page.

Matchprint - Trade name for 3M integral colour proof.

Matt art - A coated printing paper with a dull surface.

Matte finish - Dull paper or ink finish.

Measure - Denotes the width of a setting expressed in pica ems.

Mechanical binding - A method of binding which secures pre-trimmed leaves by the insertion of wire or plastic spirals through holes drilled in the binding edge.

Mechanical separation - Mechanical art overlay for each colour to be printed.

Mechanical tint - A pre-printed sheet of dots, lines or patterns that can be laid down on artwork for reproduction.

Mechanical - Camera ready art all contained on one board.

Memory - The part of the computer which stores information for immediate access. Nowadays this consists exclusively of RAM, random access memory, which holds the applications software and data or ROM, read only memory, which holds permanent information such as the DOS bootstrap routines. Memory size is expressed in K or M.

Menu-driven - Programs which allow the user to request functions by choosing from a list of options.

Metallic ink - Printing inks which produce an effect gold, silver, bronze or metallic colours.

MG (Machine glazed) - Paper with a high gloss finish on one side only.

Micrometer - Instrument used to measure the thickness of different papers.

Middle tones - The tones in a photograph that are approximately half as dark as the shadow area.

Mock-up - The rough visual of a publication or design.

Modem (MOdulator-DEModulator) - A device for converting digital data into audio signals and back again. Primarily used for transmitting data between computers over telephone lines.

Modern - Refers to type styles introduced towards the end of the 19th century. Times roman is a good example of modern type.

Moire pattern - The result of superimposing half-tone screens at the wrong angle thereby giving a chequered effect on the printed half-tone. Normally detected during the stage of progressive proofs.

Monospace - A font in which all characters occupy the same amount of horizontal width regardless of the character.

Montage - A single image formed from the assembling of several images.

Mounting board - A heavy board used for mounting artwork.

Mouse - A handheld pointing device using either mechanical motion or special optical techniques to convert the movement of the users hand into movements of the cursor on the screen. Generally fitted with one, two or three buttons which can control specific software.

MS (Manuscript) - The original written or typewritten work of an author submitted for publication.

Mutt - A typesetting term for the em space.

 

N

Negative - The image on film that makes the white areas of originals black and black areas white.

Newsprint - Unsized, low quality, absorbent paper used for printing newspapers.

Nipping - A stage in book binding where after sewing the sheets are pressed to expel air.

Non-reproducing blue - A blue colour the camera cannot see. Used in marking up artwork.

 

O

Oblique stroke - /

OCR (Optical Character Recognition) - A special kind of scanner which provides a means of reading printed characters on documents and converting them into digital codes that can be read into a computer as actual text rather than just a picture.

Offprint - A run-on or reprint of an article first published in a magazine or journal.

Offset lithography - (see Lithography) a printing method whereby the image is transferred from a plate onto a rubber covered cylinder from which the printing takes place.

Offset paper - Term for uncoated book paper.

Offsetting - Using an intermediate surface used to transfer ink. Also, an unpleasant happening when the images of freshly printed sheets transfer images to each other.

Ok sheet - Final approved colour inking sheet before production begins.

Oldstyle (US) - A style of type characterised by stressed strokes and triangular serifs. An example of an oldstyle face is Garamond.

Onion skin - A translucent lightweight paper used in air mail stationery.

Opacity - The amount of show-through on a printed sheet. The more opacity or the thicker the paper the less show-through. (The thicker/heavier the paper the higher the cost.)

Optical centre - A point above the true centre of the page which will not appear low as the geometric centre does.

Optical Disks - Video disks on which large amounts of information can be stored in binary form representing characters of text or images. The disks cannot be used to view the information using a modified compact disk player and TV. Mainly used for reference works such as dictionaries, encyclopedias, etc.

Orphan - Line of type on its own at the top or bottom of a page.

Outline - A typeface in which the characters are formed with only the outline defined rather than from solid strokes.

Outline halftone - Removing the background of a picture or silhouetting an image in a picture.

Overlay - A transparent sheet used in the preparation of multi- colour artwork showing the colour breakdown.

Overprinting - Printing over an area already printed. Used to emphasise changes or alterations.

Overrun or overs - Copies printed in excess of the specified quantity. (Printing trade terms allow for + - 10 % to represent a completed order.)

Overs - Additional paper required to compensate for spoilage in printing. Also used to refer to a quantity produced above the number of copies ordered.

Overstrike - A method used in word processing to produce a character not in the typeface by superimposing two separate characters, eg $ using s and l.

Ozalid - A trade name to describe a method of copying page proofs from paper or film.

 

P

Page count - Total number of pages in a book including blanks.

Page Description Language (PDL) - A special form of programming language which enables both text and graphics (object or bit-image) to be described in a series of mathematical statements. Their main benefit is that they allow the applications software to be independent of the physical printing device as opposed to the normal case where specific routines have to be written for each device. Typical PDLs include Interpress, imPress, PostScript and DDL.

Page Printer - The more general (and accurate) name used to describe non-impact printers which produce a complete page in one action. Examples include laser, LED and LCD shutter xerographic printers, ion deposition, electro-erosion and electro-photographic printers.

Page proofs - The stage following galley proofs, in which pages are made up and paginated.

PageMaker - The software program from Aldus Corporation that everyone associates with desktop publishing due to its immense success on the Apple Macintosh. Now available on both the Macintosh and the PC it is still used as a benchmark product although certain aspects of its design are coming under attack from other, more recent, products.

Pagination - The numbering of pages in a book.

Pantone - A registered name for an ink colour matching system.

Paper plate - A short run offset printing plate on which matter can be typed directly.

Paragraph mark - A type symbol used to denote the start of a paragraph. Also used as a footnote sign.

Parallel fold - A method of folding; e.g. two parallel folds will produce a six page sheet.

Paste up - The various elements of a layout mounted in position to form camera-ready artwork.

Pattern carbon - Special carbon paper used in business forms that only transfers in certain areas.

Perfect bind - A type of binding that glues the edge of sheets to a cover like a telephone book, Microsoft software manual, or Country Living Magazine.

Perfect binding - A common method of binding paperback books. After the printed sections having been collated, the spines will be ground off and the cover glued on.

Perfecting press - A sheet fed printing press that prints both sides of a sheet in one pass.

Perfector - A printing press which prints both sides of the paper at one pass through the machine.

Photogravure - (see Gravure) a printing process where the image is etched into the plate cylinder. The main advantage of this method of printing is the high speed, long run capability. Used mainly for mail order and magazine work.

Pi fonts - Characters not usually included in a font, but which are added specially. Examples of these are timetable symbols and mathematical signs.

Pica - A printing industry unit of measurement. There are 12 points to a pica, one pica is approximately 0.166in.