a to z

A Series International Standards Organisation (ISO) paper sizes
This is the most common paper size used for general printing, stationery and publications throughout the world except for America, South America and Canada.
A0 = 841mm x 1189mm, A1 = 594mm x 841mm, A2 = 420mm x 594mm, A3 = 297mm x 420mm, A4 = 210mm x 297mm, A5 = 148mm x 210mm, A6 = 105mm x 148mm.
American equivalent of A4 is AQ (Letter) 215.9mm x 279.4mm

Art Paper or Gloss Art
Paper which has a smooth gloss finish. Often called Gloss Art.

Artwork often abbreviated to a/w.
Finished layout of typesetting, drawings and photographs.

Author’s Corrections often abbreviated to AC’s,  Authors or Amends
Customer corrections/changes made during the proofing stage. These can be verbal or ‘marked up’ on the proofs. Commonly, many printers charge for making minor changes, but not at Ruscombe! We would only ever charge for extensive and time consuming alterations.

B Series International paper sizes (ISO)
The B series is about half way between two A sizes and is less commonly used. It is intended as an alternative to the A sizes, used primarily for books, posters, wall charts and similar pieces.

Back-up (1) “backing up the sheet”
To print on the reverse side of a printed sheet.

Back-up (2) “just need to get the job off back-up”
When retrieving previously used digital files from electronic data storage. At Ruscombe, we back up every aspect of your job indefinitely.

Bitmap
An image file format often used on PC’s. Although all image formats do use bitmapping.
A bitmap is an image made up of dots, or pixels. This refers to a raster image, in which the image consists of rows or pixels rather than vector coordinates.
Bitmapping is a term often used to describe seeing blocks of jagged outlines on a picture.

Bindery or ‘finishing’
The department within the printing company that manipulates the printed flat sheets of paper into the final finished item. Trimming, folding etc.

Blanket
The cylinder on a lithographic printing press is covered with a rubber blanket that transfers the image from a plate to a sheet of paper.

Bleed
Part of the printed imagery that extends past the trim marks of the page. This is necessary due to very small movements in the mechanical process of producing items. The addition of bleed eradicates the chance of paper showing on the edge of trim where ink should be.

Blind Embossed
A shape, block, logo, text or design which is relief stamped into a sheet of paper or board.

Blocking or foil blocking
To stamp a design transferring a coloured foil (commonly metallic) onto paper or board.
Board
Reference to paper when the weight (gsm) is over 170gsm.

Body
The main text of work not including the headlines.

Bond paper
A paper commonly used for writing, printing and photocopying.

Bromide
A kind of proof which was used for a black and white proof on photographic paper.

C Series International Standards Organisation (ISO) paper sizes
The C series is used for folders, post cards, and envelopes. The C series of envelope sizes is suitable for insertion of A series sizes either flat or folded. A C6 envelope will take A6 sheet flat, an A5 folded once, or an A4 sheet folded twice.
Commonly used envelope sizes are, C3 = 324 x 458, C4 = 229mm x 324mm, C5 = 162mm x 229mm, C6 = 114mm x 162mm.
There is one more commonly used envelope size called DL (DIN Lang - Deutsche Industrie Normen, the German standard that was the origin of the ISO paper sizing system). DL size is 110mm x 220mm and comfortably accommodates A4 folded to a third as well as compliment slips.

Carbon Paper
A thin woodfree or part mechanical paper coated on one side with colouring agent of carbon. It is transferred to a sheet of paper underneath when pressure is applied. NCR is the carbonless equivalent.

Case Bound
A hardback book made with a stiff outer covers usually covered with cloth, vinyl or leather.

Chromalin
This used to be the industry standard colour proofing system owned by Agfa using coloured powders adhering to sticky residue left by an ultra violet exposed film.

Coated Paper
Paper or board can be pre-coated by the paper manufacturer either on one side or both sides giving a smooth and glossy finish. Coated paper can give a better printing surface than uncoated.
Paper can also be coated in-line through the printing press to seal the ink to the paper.
This coating has many advantages as it can protect literature from ink smudging or finger marking and also enhance appearance. Coating is also beneficial in the turnaround speed of printing as it dries straight away allowing the sheets to be backed up or finished straight away. Similar to coating are varnishes which can have combinations of matt and gloss combined. Ruscombe is able to supply all of these methods.

Collating
Different printed sheets arranged into a required sequence either by hand, by machine, or by a digital press during the print run.

Colour Separations
Division of colour into basic elements e.g. CMYK or RGB or Spot, this can be achieved by a process of scanning or page make-up from a computer. Separate printing plates are needed for each colour.

Coverage
Extent to how much ink covers the surface of the printed sheet. Ink coverage is usually termed as light, medium or heavy.

CMYK
Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black, K is used for representing black as it is the Key colour.
Cyan, magenta, and yellow are the three main pigments used for colour reproduction. When these three colours are combined in printing, the result should be a reasonable reproduction of the original, but in practice this is not the case. Due to limitations in the ink pigments, the darker colours are dirty and muddied. To resolve this, a black separation is also created, which improves the shadow and contrast of the image.
Your monitor uses RGB (Red, Green and Blue) to emit colour, whereas the colour scheme used for printing is CMYK, which are combined to get the equivalent RGB colours: magenta + yellow = red, magenta + cyan = blue and cyan + yellow = green.
However, these colours will not be as bright as the RGB colours that can be displayed on the screen. The reason is that CMYK works through light absorption: the colour you see on paper is the result of the visible spectre of light that’s left unabsorbed and reflected back to your eyes. On the contrary, RGB colours on monitor screens are exposing light, with the consequence that colours appear much more vibrant. And thus is the key reason why colours you see on the screen and when printed look different and sometimes substantially so. Bright greens, vibrant oranges and royal blues are incredibly difficult to reproduce using CMYK, and this is when a ‘special’, ‘spot’ or Pantone ink may be mixed and printed in addition or instead of CMYK.

CTP
Computer To Plate. Digital files are exposed using thermal lasers directly onto an aluminium plate which has a light / heat sensitive coating.

Creasing
An indentation made in thick paper to prevent cracking when being folded.

Creep or Thrust
This occurs in saddle-stitched brochures. When a page is folded in half, inserted into another, and another and so on, the centre pages extend out further than the outermost. Ruscombe’s imposition software compensates for this by bringing the printed matter inwards incrementally so that no imagery is lost when the brochure is cut down to finished size.

Debossing
Stamping of a block or design depresses a shape below the surface of paper or board.

Desktop Publishing or DTP
Artwork created on computer using various applications able to output to high quality imaging devices.

Die-Cut or Die Stamping
To cut paper, card or board to a particular size, shape or design using an often bespoke metal die, to create folders, unusually shaped finished pieces and packaging.

Digital Printing
Digital presses use lasers to image to a reusable plate in order to transfer ink to paper whilst ‘on the run’ as opposed to Litho presses using one set of plates per print run which then need to be removed and recycled.
The way in which the digital press works allows for every sheet printed during a run being of a different artwork, personalised for example, whilst never needing to stop.
The advantage of digital printing is the speed of which a job can be printed and turned around from approval, as well as cost savings from less consumables needed.
Around the print run length of 1,000 sheets Lithographic presses will become more cost effective.

DL Envelope
Standard envelope size measuring 110mm x 220mm. (DIN Lang - Deutsche Industrie Normen, the German standard that was the origin of the ISO paper sizing system). Comfortably accommodates A4 folded to a third as well as compliment slips.

Dot Gain
‘Dots’ of different sizes make up images or tints on the printing plates. Due to the mechanical physical pressures of the printing process, these dots can enlarge or reduce in size as they are applied to the printed sheet, which in turn can affect the density of colour or detail on the finished item.

Double Hit
To print the same image twice so it has two layers of the same ink. Most commonly used with solids, especially black to achieve twice the density of ink.

Double Page Spread
Two facing pages of a publication.

DPI
Dots Per Inch, This has a numeric value that indicates the resolution of images. The higher the resolution, the higher the potential output quality. This figure only needs to be between 300dpi and 350dpi if the final image is being output at 100% size to a device such as a platesetter.

Drop Shadow
A shadow used under an image or text to give the image or text an effect of lifting off the page.

Dummy
A made-up proof to emulate as close to the finished item as possible before going to press.

Duotone
A photograph printed using two ink colours only.

Duplex Printing on both sides of a sheet. This term tends to be used in regard to digital presses capable of doing this with one pass of the press. Lithographic presses can also do this, and is called ‘perfecting’.

Embossing
Relief printing or stamping in which metal dies are used to raise an image above the surface of paper or board.

Encapsulation
A sealed film of plastic on both sides of a sheet to ensure its durability.

EPS
Encapsulated Postscript. A commonly used file format for images.

Fit or Registration
Aligning the four colour separations onto the substrate to sit perfectly on top of each other. Also referred to as registration.

Film
Transparent material made of plastic which can be printed onto by our digital press or proofer.

Finished Size
Final size of item once production is completed, as compared to flat size. Also called trimmed size.

Finishing or Bindery
The department within the printing company that manipulates the printed flat sheets of paper into the final finished item.

Flat Size
The size of the item after being trimmed, but not before folding is completed, as compared to finished size.

Flightchecking
This is software we use to interrogate your files to make sure fonts, images, colours and page sizes are correct.

Folio
These are the actual page numbers that are printed on your publication.

Font or Typeface
The software images used to create letters, numbers or symbols for text all of which have a common design to work together.

Four colour process
Full colour printing using the four common colours of Cyan, Yellow, Magenta and Black.

FTP
File Transfer Protocol, this is a popular method of supplying digital artwork files that has superseded ISDN, and tends to be less troublesome than email for large files. Please ask Steve, Matt, Laila or Claire for details.

gsm or Grammage
Grammes per square metre. The standard measure of paper weight. Also referred to as a guide to the paper thickness.

Gatefold
A sheet folded from both outside edges in, and then folded once more together.

Gathering
Placing the sections of a book in the correct order for binding.

Gloss coating
Please see Coating.

Gloss varnish
A varnish applied to printed matter to protect against smudging and finger marking and gives a gloss finish.

Graduation
A transition of one colour to another, a vignette being a commonly used method.

Grain of the paper
Paper supplied by the paper mill is created from fibres. These fibres ‘point’ in a consistent direction due to the process. This means that paper will fold or tear more easily in one direction to the other.

Guillotine
A heavy duty piece of equipment using a large amount of pressure and a large very sharp blade to cut and trim quantities of printed sheets accurately in one movement.

Halftone
The process by which continuous tones are reproduced on plate using a pattern of dots that vary in size. Usually only visible when using a linen tester.

Hexachrome
This is a colour system that uses a set of six inks, made up of a modified four-colour set plus orange and green. The objective of hexachrome is to improve the printed colour gamut. Using hexachrome allows about ninety per cent of Pantone's special colours to be achieved.

Hickey
Spots or imperfections on printed items due to dust, lint, paper particles or ink imperfections during the print run. These are particularly noticeable on solid coverage of colours.

Highlight
The tonal range of dots usually in a photograph or illustration between 0% and 30% of coverage, as compared to midtones and shadows.

Impose or Imposition
Arrangement of pages so that when the sheet is folded by machine the correct ‘readers pairs’ marry up into the correct sequence.

Insert
Leaflet or other printed material inserted loose into a publication.

International paper sizes
The standard range of metric paper sizes as per the definition of the paper International Standards Organisation (ISO). Most common paper size used for general printing, stationery and publications throughout the world except for America, South America and Canada.

I-R Drying
The use of infra-red radiation to quickly dry water based emulsion coating on a sheet of paper.

ISDN
Integrated Services Digital Networking. A method of electronic file transfer using optical cables on the telephone network. Now superseded by broadband.

JDF
Job Definition Format. This is the latest technology which networks together the entire print flow of a company. Sending the information from your order to personnel, computer systems, and machinery to help in the setup, accuracy and speed of your publication.

JPEG
Joint Photographic Experts Group. A commonly used file format for image files.

Kiss - cut
A shaped cut out from two layered stock which only cuts through the top layer, generally used for circular stickers.

Laminating
A thin plastic film or coating applied through heat or pressure to give a smooth finish and protection to a publications surface. This can be gloss or matt and unlike encapsulation can be one sided only.

Landscape
Page orientation whereby the width is greater than height, opposite of portrait.

Layout
The overall design of a piece of printed work.

Machine Proof
A proof of the job from the printing press the final run will be printed on.

Machine varnish
Varnish applied to printed literature to protect or seal against smudging or finger marking.

Make-ready
The work associated with the set-up of printing equipment before running a job.

Matt Art
A clay coated printing paper with a dull finish.

Matt coating
The coating applied to printed matter which is quick drying and protects literature from ink smudging and finger marking and gives a matt finish.

Matt varnish
Varnish applied to printed literature to protect against smudging and finger marking and gives a matt finish.

Metallic Ink
A printing ink, which produces an effect of gold, silver, bronze or copper.

Midtones
The tonal range of dots usually in a photograph or illustration between 30% and 70% of coverage, as compared to highlights and shadows.

Monochrome
An image made up of varying tones in only one colour.

NCR or Carbonless Paper
Invented by the NCR Corporation although often referred to as No Carbon Required. Part mechanical sheets of paper that are coated on the bottom and/or the top with micro-encapsulated dye or ink. This dye or ink is transferred to a sheet of paper underneath when pressure is applied.

Origination
Artwork, photography, typesetting, copy etc. All the elements needed to put together and print the job.

Offset litho(graphy)
The printing process by which the inked image to be printed is transferred (offset) first to a rubber layer (blanket) which in turn transfers the ink onto the paper which takes up the inked areas.

OPI Open Platform Interface
A process by which low resolution image files in a page make up document are identified and replaced automatically by high resolution files via a reprographics work flow. This is a useful tool when rip’ing very large photoshop files.

Original
Any artwork or image intended for reproduction.

Overprint
Printing over an already printed area. Commonly solid black elements overprint other colours.

Overs
The extra sheets that are printed in excess to the ordered quantity which are then used for setting up the bindery equipment to finish the item.

Pagination
The term given to the page numbering of a publication in correct sequence.

Pantone matching system (PMS)
Registered trade name, this is a colour matching system used in computer softwares, and inks.

PDF
Portable Document Format. PDF’s are commonly used to supply final artwork. PDF’s are excellent for keeping the integrity of the suppliers artwork, providing the file has been distilled correctly for the printing process. However, they are also far less editable than page-make up files. PDFs are also very useful as soft proofs.

Perfect binding
Pages of a book which are glued together creating a squared spine.

Perfecting
Printing the second side of a sheet simultaneously ‘backing up’ or equivalent to duplexing.

Perforate
Broken or dashed slotted cuts or rules to enable the paper to be torn easily in a desired place.

Personalisation
Where data elements are unique to an individual print piece. Concept facilitated by digital printing. Mono coloured names and addresses on publications use this facility most commonly, however images and coloured text can also be used in personalisation. Personalisation works really well if the database supplied has accurate content.

Pixel
‘Picture element’, the dot made by a computer, scanner or other digital device.

Plate or ‘metal’
A sheet of metal (although can be plastic) holding the image from which an impression is produced on press.

Platesetter
The imaging machine where the printing plate is produced directly from data. Digital files are exposed using the platesetters thermal lasers directly onto an aluminium plate which has a light / heat sensitive coating.

Postscript
Registered trade mark of Adobe, this is a page description language which describes the content and layout of a page.

Process Colours
The printing inks Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black, see CMYK reference.

Proof
Visual sample of work to be checked for errors in text, positioning or quality of colour reproduction.

Pulp
The basic material used in producing paper at the mill, broken down mechanically or chemically.

RIP
Raster Image Processing. This is the computer process that interprets the postscript language into bitmapped information, the dots, solids and shapes that will be output to an imaging device.

Ream
500 sheets of paper of the same size, quality and grammage packaged together.

RGB
Abbreviation for red, green, blue, the additive colour primaries.

Registration
Aligning the four colour separations onto the substrate to sit perfectly on top of each other. Also referred to as fit. Registration marks are used for this.

Registration Marks
A set of fine line crosses added outside of the finished size artwork to provide reference points for accurate multi-colour printing.

Repro (Graphic Reproduction)
Pre-press department where scanning, page-make up, proofs and printing plates are output.

Resolution
Refers to the degree of detail of an image or output device. Usually measured in dots per inch (dpi) or lines per inch (lpi). A high resolution gives a high quality image and output.

Retouching
Altering an image on a computer using an application such as Photoshop.

Reversed Out Printing or White Out
White text reversed out of a background of solid colour.

Saddle Stitched
A method of stitching brochures in which they are opened over a saddle shaped support and stitched using metal wire (stapled) through the back to secure them together.

Sans Serif
Term used to classify a wide range of typefaces as those which are devoid of finishing strokes. In typography, a sans-serif (or sans serif, sans) typeface is one that does not have the small features called "serifs" (non-structural details on the ends of some of the strokes) at the end of strokes. The term comes from the French word sans, meaning "without".

Satin Finish
A smooth finished paper with a sheen on the surface.

Score
A crease made in paper or card so that folding will not damage it.

Screen or Screen Ruling
Number of rows or lines of dots per inch or centimetre that will make a tint or halftone image on plate. This screen enables a continuous tone image to be broken down into a binary image of very small dots. This binary reproduction relies on the basic optical illusion that the tiny halftone dots are blended into smooth tones by the human eye when viewed from a distance.

Sealer
Alternative name for a coater.

Section
A sheet folded to create four or more book pages. Each section is then combined in Bindery to make up the finished item.

Self- cover
The same substrate (paper) is used on the cover as is used throughout the text of a brochure.

Serif
In typography, serifs are non-structural details on the ends of some of the strokes that make up letters and symbols.

Set-Off
Term for the unintentional transfer of wet ink from the printed sheet to the next sheet or page.

Shadow
The tonal range of dots usually in a photograph or illustration between 70% and 100% of coverage, as compared to highlights and midtones.

Sheet Fed
A printing press into which sheets are fed as opposed to web which uses reels of paper.

Shrink wrapping
Packaging printed items in plastic by applying heat which shrinks down to encapsulate the item(s).

Silk coating
A coating applied to printed matter which is quick drying and protects literature from ink smudging and finger marking and gives a silk finish.

Silk varnish
A varnish applied to printed literature to protect against finger marking and smudging and gives a silk finish.

Simplex
Printing on one side of a sheet of paper as opposed to Duplex, the term usually applied to digital printing presses.

Solid colour or a solid
An even colour which is not shaded. Areas on a page with solid colours are known as solids.

Spine
Back or binding edge of a publication

Spot Colour
A colour that is printed not using four colour (process or CMYK) printing, but printed using self-coloured inks such as Pantone colours.

Stochastic Screening (Frequency Modulated)
Conventional screening tends to use square or elliptical shaped dots to make an image up on plate. Stochastic uses seemingly random flecks to create an image or tint.
This can be very useful when imagery contains mesh like items such as audio speaker mesh, or cross patterned suits. Conventional screening can ‘clash’ with such imagery creating moiré patterns, whereas stochastic doesn’t. Stochastic on the other hand can make flat panels of tints look slightly mottled compared to conventional.

Stock
Paper or card to be printed on

Stop the Press!
A term only ever used in Hollywood films and usually accompanied by a big red button and sirens going off.

Swatch
A colour specimen.

Substrate
Any surface or material on which printing is done.

Tint
The effect of the mixture of white to a solid colour or the effect achieved by breaking up colour into a percentage using dots, which allows white paper to show through.

TIFF or TIF
Tagged Image File Format. A commonly used image file format.

Text
The pages inside the cover of a publication, which contain the main body of copy.

Trapping
When preparing digital artwork – it is the process of overlapping or butting of adjacent colours to eliminate any white lines from the paper that could appear between them during the printing process.

Trim Marks
Marks incorporated on a printed sheet, which indicate where the paper is to be cut or trimmed.

TWAIN
This is a standard software protocol that regulates the communication between software applications and imaging devices such as scanners and digital cameras. TWAIN is commonly thought to stand for Technology Without An Interesting Name, - those IT guy’s eh!

Typo
Short for typographical error, a text mistake in the copy.

Typography
The design and layout of type.

UV Varnishing or Spot UV
A specialised printed varnish, hardened by ultra-violet light. This is commonly glossy, it can be used over a whole page (overall), or can be ‘spot’ gloss varnished which would cover specific areas enhancing appearance.

Varnishes
A transparent solution which can be mixed with ink (contaminated varnish) or printed over ink to produce a glossy, matt or silk surface finish. This can be overall varnish, or spot varnish, and combinations of matt and gloss can be applied.
Special varnishes applied to printed matter to protect literature from ink smudging or finger marking or to enhance appearance. There are five main types – machine, gloss,

Visual
A preliminary layout, ‘mock-up’ indicating the general design, and the position of the various elements.

Watermark
This can be a design that is laid into the paper during manufacture by either impressing a water-coated metal stamp (dandy roll) onto the paper or can be created by areas of relief on the roll's own surface (Cylinder Mould Process). The design is visible when viewed under a light or contrasting background. Security items tend to make the most use of this, a commonly known water mark on stationery is found when using a certain Conqueror stocks.

Web fed press
Presses which are fed by from a continuous reel of paper (a giant loo roll!) as opposed to sheet fed. Usually used for low quality high run work such as Newspapers.

Wire-O Binding
A mechanical binding which uses a series of double wire loops formed from a single continuous wire running along its length.

Work and Tumble
Work and Tumble uses one set of plates, containing elements that will back themselves up after one side of a sheet is printed, the sheet is turned over from front to back to print the second side, giving two copies to every sheet.

Work and Turn
Work and Turn uses one set of plates, containing elements that will back themselves up after one side of a sheet is printed, the sheet is turned over from left to right to print the second side, giving two copies to every sheet.

X-height
In typography, the x-height refers to the distance between the baseline and the mean line in a typeface. Typically, this is the height of the letter x in the font (which is where the terminology came from), as well as the a, c, e, m, n, o, r, s, u, v, w, and z.