FAQ's
Please download our artwork specification sheet to guide you through on how to submit your artwork to us.
A | B | C | D | E | F | G | I | K | L | M | N | O | P | R | S | T | U | V | W | Y
Printing Fact Sheet from A to Z
A
A Size: The A range in the ISO international series of paper sizes.
Adhesive: A substance, such as glue, used to laminate two structures together.
Align: To line up typeset or other graphic material as specified, using a base or vertical line as the reference point.
Alteration: Change in copy or specifications after production has begun.
Art Paper: A term used to describe a range of smooth glossy papers with a filled surface, usually obtained by adding a coating of china clay compound on one or both sides of the paper.
Artboard: Alternate term for mechanical art.
Artwork (A/W): The final interpretation of the design; the material which is supplied to the printer for making film and plates.
Author's corrections: Also known as "AC's". Alterations made by the customer after the artwork, proofs, have been produced. An extra charge is usually levied for changes made at this stage.
B
Basis Weight: In paper, the weight of a standard ream of paper. The basis weight of most packaging papers is calculated on a ream of 500 sheets of 24 inch x 36 inch, or in pounds of 3,000 square feet of paper.
Bind: To fasten sheets or signatures and attach covers with glue, wire, thread or other means.
Binding: The various methods used to secure loose leaves or sections in a book; eg saddle-stitch, perfect bound.
Bitmap Graphic: An image or shape of any kind -a picture, a text character, a photo that's made up of dots (bits) rather than discrete objects. Typically produced by paint, image-editing and 3-D graphics programs. Sometimes called a raster image; compare with the definition for vector graphic.
Black: One colour in the four colour process used to provide deeper contrast and detail.
Blanket: The thick rubber mat on a printing press that transfers ink from the plate to paper.
Bleed: An image that is printed to the edges of a page, or the ability of a press or printer to print an image to the edges of a page. A full bleed document is printed on a larger sheet and is trimmed to size, since ink or toner would foul press cylinders or belts if it actually extended off the edges of the paper. Printers typically charge more for bleeds because more paper is required.
Blow Up: An enlargement, most frequently of a graphic image or a photograph.
Board: Heavy paper, usually over 200 gsm.
Bond: Originally a term applied to cotton-content paper used for printing bonds and legal documents, and distinguished by strength, performance, and durability. Used for letterheads and forms, bond paper may now be made from cotton, chemical wood pulp, or a combination of the two. Today, writing, digital, and cut-size papers are often identified with the bond scale.
Box Perf: An area that has been perforated across and down. For example, to form a label.
Brightness (ISO): Brightness is measured as the percentage of light in a narrow spectral range reflected from the surface of a sheet of paper. It is not necessarily related to colour or whiteness. A paper with a brightness of 98 is an extremely bright sheet with almost all light being reflected back to the viewer. Bright white papers illuminate transparent printing inks, giving cleaner, crisper colour and contrasty blacks.
Burst Binding: A method of unsown adhesive binding in which the sections are 'burst' by being punched through the spine to allow the adhesive to link the paper in each section, and the sections to each other.
C
Carbonless Paper (NCR): Paper coated with chemicals and dye which will produce copies without carbon paper. Also referred to as NCR -No Carbon Required.
Cast Coated: Art paper with exceptionally glossy coated finish usually on one-side only.
CMYK: Cyan, magenta, yellow and black are the process colours of toner or ink used in offset and digital printing. The colours overlap and appear to mix visually to reproduce a complete spectrum of colours. Black (K) is usually added to enhance colour and to print a true black. See also Process Colour.
Coated Paper: Made with a surface coating, which allows for maximum smoothness and ink holdout in the printing process. Coated papers are available in a range of finishes from dull to matte, and gloss.
Collate: A finishing term referring to the assembling of a set of individual sheets or signatures in proper sequence for binding.
Colour Bar: A strip of colours printed at edge of press sheets used to evaluate ink density for quality control purposes.
Comb Bind: To bind by inserting teeth of flexible plastic comb into holes punched in a stack of pages.
Concertina Fold: A method of folding in which each fold opens in the opposite direction to its neighbour, giving a concertina or pleated effect.
Cover Paper: Also called card stock, these papers are heavyweight coated or uncoated paper with good folding characteristics. Their diverse uses include folders, booklet covers, brochures and pamphlets.
Crease: To mechanically press a rule into heavy paper or board to enable folding without cracking. When folding it is often necessary to pre-crease. Best results are obtained when folds are made parallel to the grain. Always fold into the bead. Creasing on a litho machine or with the Rotary score method will not always give a satisfactory result.
Crop Marks: Lines near the edges of an image showing portions to be eliminated.
Cyan: One of the three subtractive primary colours. In printing, one of four process inks. The blue colour.
D
Design: The preliminary process where the designer conceives the layout, colour, content, etc of the project from a brief.
Desktop Publishing: The process of designing printed documents (brochures, newsletters, magazines, books, etc) often using a page layout program on a personal computer.
Die Cutting: The process of using sharp steel rules to cut special
shapes for labels, boxes or containers from printed
sheets.
Digital Printing: Printing in which an image is applied to paper or another substrate directly from a digital file rather than using film and/or plates. Benefits are for short runs or personalized print.
Drilling: Drilling of holes in paper.
E
Embossing: A decorative finish or design achieved by damping the paper and passing it through engraved rollers.
F
Feeding: Presses can be either sheet fed i.e. where the paper is fed into the machine in separate sheets, or web fed, where the paper is fed from a reel. The appropriate application depends on quantity requirements since web is always faster, but may not be economic for smaller quantities.
File Format: The structure in which the data for a particular document is stored (e.g. ASCII, RTF, PICT, TIFF, etc.). Most applications can save documents in one or more standard formats as well as in their native format.
Film: Loose term used to describe the film of the original which is made during the reproduction process. Where a job is to be printed by the four colour process these are separated into 4 sheets Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and black.
Film Copy: The image reproduced on film which is to be transferred to a printing plate for offset printing.
Film Laminating: Different types of laminates are available in both Matt and Gloss.
Foil Emboss: Foil stamping & embossing an image on paper with a die.
Fonts: A set of alphabetical characters or symbols, each with its own design produced by a specific company. Usually fonts are created in families that include fonts with different attributes, such as bold or italic these fonts are called stylised fonts.
Four-colour Process: Technique of printing that uses process colours - cyan, magenta, yellow and black - to simulate full colour images. The colours of the original are first separated by a photographic or electronic process (see reproduction, plate making and proofing). Use a magnifying glass or a photographic loupe to examine the lighter areas of the cover and you will see the individual halftone dots that make up a four-colour image.
G
Gang Run: 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.
Gloss: A finish which gives a paper a high sheen. Gloss is the surface reflectance value at a given angle. The greater the value the greater the surface of Gloss.
Gradient: A gradual change in shading or colour over an area on the printed page or screen. A gradient involving different colours is sometimes called a blend.
Grain (Paper): The direction along which the majority of fibres lie.
Graphics: General term for result of files created in drawing / illustrating / paint applications. Used to enhance documents.
Greyscale: A scale of 256 standard grey tones ranging from black (0) to 255 (white), placed at the side of copy to measure tonal range and contrast.
Grippers: The metal fingers on a printing press that hold the paper as it passes through the press.
GSM (Grammage): Paper weight is measured in grams per square meter. Most paper qualities are available in a range of weights to produce different thicknesses.
Guillotine: A machine used for cutting and trimming.
I
Illustrations: Items such as logos that are created within a computer drawing program that are object orientated, as distinct from images that have been scanned or captured digitally that are bitmapped.
Image Area: Portion of a negative or plate corresponding to inking on paper; portion of paper on which ink appears.
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.
Impression: The pressure of type, plate or blanket as it comes in contact with paper to create an image.
Ink-Jet: A type of printer that sprays droplets of ink onto paper to form an image.
Inks: There are numerous brands available. The same inks can produce quite different colours on different papers.
K
Kiss Die Cut: To cut the top layer of a pressure sensitive sheet and not the backing. Normally used with adhesives.
L
Laminate: A thin transparent plastic coating applied to paper or board to provide protection and give it a glossy or matte finish. It is also used to increase protection against wear and tear.
Landscape: Work in which the width used is greater than the height.
Laser Printer: A desktop printer, which uses a laser beam to create an image on a photoconductive drum.
Layout: A rendering of a proposed printed piece, indicating positions for headings, copy, art and borders.
M
Magenta: One of the three subtractive primary colours. In printing, one of four process inks. Process red.
Make Ready: All the activities required to set up the press for a pressrun, including running test sheets of paper.
Matt: A non glossy finish.
Margin: The blank space around the image area of a page.
Monochrome: An image of a single colour. Usually refers to black on white but also describes single colour print, for example, brown or beige.
Montage: A composite illustration combining several images
N
NCR: Paper coated with chemicals and dye which will produce copies without carbon paper
O
Offset Printing: Offset printing is a printing is a printing process that uses metal plates and ink; it is characterised by the use of a blanket cylinder, a rubber plate that picks up the image from the metal plate itself and then transfers that image onto the sheet of paper.
Outline Font: A font in which each character's shape is stored as a mathematical outline. It can be scaled to any size with no loss of quality and will print at the highest available resolution.
Overrun or Overs: Copies printed in excess of the specified quantity. Printing trade terms allow for + -10 % to represent a completed order.
P
Page Count: Total number of pages in a book including blanks.
Pantone Colours (PMS): A registered name for the industry standard colour matching system for mixing inks. Pantone is a colour language that provides an accurate method for the selection, presentation, specification, communication, reproduction, matching and control of colour.
Paper / Board: As a general rule paper/board substances are up to 200g/m -paper, over 200g/m board.
Paper Count: The total number of pages, including blanks and printed pages without numbers.
Perfect Binding: A style of unsewn binding in which the leaves of book are trimmed to single sheets. They are clamped together and a cover is wrapped around the spine. The pages are attached to the cover using an adhesive. This is the style generally used to bind a magazine.
Perfecting: Printing on both sides of the paper on one pass through the press. This can only be done on a press which features a perfecting unit.
Perforating: Used to facilitate the tearing of a sheet of paper, for example for reply forms or receipts.
Plate: Piece of paper, metal, plastic, or rubber carrying an image to be reproduced using a printing press. Produced photographically using film negatives to control the photographic exposure of the plate. Exposed areas of the plate hold ink on press, thereby reverting the negative image back into a positive.
Plate Gap: Gripper space. The area where the grippers hold the sheet as it passes through the press.
Plate Making: Plate making refers to printing plates used in the offset printing process. The plates then attract and retain or reject ink as required in the print process.
Portrait: The shape of a book or illustration is referred to as portrait when its height is greater than its width.
PostScript: A programming language developed by Adobe that describes, in precise detail, how the text and graphics on a printed page should look. It is often referred to as a page description language and is used on many types of printers and imagesetters. PostScript code is translated by a raster image processor or RIPped-before it can be used by a digital printer or offset press.
Prepress: Camera work, colour separating, stripping, platemaking and other services provided prior to printing. Typically used tto refer to the process of having film run out to an imagesetter.
Process Blue: The blue or cyan colour in process printing.
Process Colour: The four standard ink colours used in full-colour printing: black, yellow, cyan, and magenta.
Process Printing: The printing from a series of halftone plates, usually four, to reproduce continuous-tone colour images.
Proof: Test sheets run at all stages of the printing process to check for and reveal potential flaws or errors before they are committed to a final press run. Keep a copy of each stage of the proofing process to track down when and where an error on press has occurred. Errors that were caught by you on a printer's proof, but not changed by the printer, will not be your financial responsibility.
Proofing: The process of producing sample copies for customer approval prior to bulk production.
R
Rasterising: The process of converting the outlines of an object-orientated graphic or font into the bit map (a pattern of dots or pixels) required for display on a monitor or output on a printer. In printers, this step is usually handled by a RIP.
Registration: The alignment of adjacent colour areas in a printed reproduction. Registration must be perfect from the creation and imposition of the films all the way to printing if the final printed piece is to be successful.
Resolution: The ability of a reproduction to show the details of the original as well as possible. Resolution is tied to the distance from which it is to be viewed. Posters, which are to be read at several meters distance, do not require a resolution as high as photographs in a magazine.
RGB: The colour model used by computers. Colour is created using additive primary colours red, green and blue.
Raster Image Processor (RIP): The hardware engine which calculates the bit-mapped image of text and graphics from a series of instructions. It may, or may not, understand a page description language but the end Is Software that is used as a translator between you and the printer.
Roll Fold: A method of folding a sheet of paper all the same way, but not concertina.
S
Saddle Stitching: A method of binding where the folded pages are stitched through the spine from the outside, using wire staples. Usually limited to 64-page size.
Sans-Serif: A typeface without serifs. Sans-serif typefaces include Helvetica, Futura, Gill etc.
Scale: To identify the percentage by which images should be enlarged or reduced.
Scan: When you have an image outside the computer, like a photograph or a drawing on paper, and you want to use it inside your computer; you need to scan the image using a scanner.
Score: To partially cut with a rule into heavy paper or board to break the grain and so enable it to fold more readily.
Self Cover: Publication made entirely from the same paper so that cover is printed simultaneously with inside pages.
Separation: Plates representing the levels of cyan, magenta, yellow and black colours contained in original colour artwork.
Serif: A line crossing the main strokes of a character in a font. Serifs lead the eye across a line of type. Serif typefaces include Bodoni, Garamond, Times, etc.
Set Off: Also called off set. Transferring or smearing of ink from freshly printed press sheets to another surface. Printers often add a varnish or aqueous coating in line to avoid set off of printed sheets in bindery operations.
Sheet Fed Press: Press that uses pre-cut sheets of paper, rather than rolls.
Side Stitch: To bind by stapling through sheets along one edge.
Silk Paper: A slight sheen finish on the paper
Single Colour: Print in a single colour, usually black
Skip Perf: A perforation that runs only part of the way across a form.
Solid: Any area of the sheet that has received a 100% ink
coverage.
Special Colour: An additional colour, not four colour process can be the 5th or 6th colour etc in four colour process (A Pantone colour).
Specifications: The complete and precise descriptions of paper, binding, quantity and other features of a printing job.
Spine: The binding edge of a signature or publication.
Spiral Binding: To bind using a wire or plastic spiral looped through holes in a stack of paper.
Spot Colour: Colours specified in PMS inks other than the four standard process colours.
Spot Varnishing: The application of varnish (gloss or matt) on a small part or parts of a printed page.
Square Back: A binding which has been collated, trimmed and sewn, but not rounded and backed. Also called 'Flat Back'.
Stamping: Term for foil stamping.
Stock: The material to be printed.
Stop Perf: A perforation that runs only part of the way down a form.
Swatch: A colour sample.
T
Text Paper: Paper used for the text portion of a publication, as opposed to cover stock.
Three Colour: Print in three colours.
Top Cut: To die cut the top layer, but not the backing layer, of self-adhesive paper.
Trapping: The process of overlapping two adjoining colours in an image so that holes are not left in the image by the normal registration variations of the printing process.
Trim: The cutting of the finished product to the correct size. Marks are incorporated on the printed sheet to show where the trimming is to be made.
Trim Marks: The lines on artwork, negative, plate or press sheet showing where the page is to be trimmed after printing. Also known as cut marks.
Trim Size: The final size of one printed image after the last trim is made.
Two Colour: Print in two colours, often black and one other; can also refer to a two colour printing machine
U
UV Coating (Spot UV): A liquid laminate bonded and cured with ultraviolet light. Usually applied on chosen parts (spots) of the printed image.
V
Variable Imaging/Data: Printing or the ability to print different text and/or images on each sheet of paper that runs through a printer or press. Both the press and the software driving it must be able to offer this capability in order for the process to work.
Varnish: Clear finish applied like ink on a press that provides additional protection and sheen to a printed piece. A varnish may have a dull or glossy appearance, and may be tinted with coloured ink. A flood varnish is applied to the entire page; a spot varnish is applied only to selected image areas and requires a printing plate to apply.
Vector Graphic: Contain lines, circles, squares and curves -the graphic primaries. Each element can be modified at a later date. An image made up of individual, mathematically defined objects, rather than a collection of bits. Typically created by drawing programs, which are based on either PostScript or QuickDraw. Also called a vector graphic.
Vector Mode: Vector mode drawings are based on characteristic points. Contrary to the bitmap mode, the vector mode can utilize the printers maximum resolution and achieve optimal smoothing of characters and images.
W
Washup: Removing printing ink from a press, washing the rollers and blanket. Certain ink colours require multiple washups to avoid ink and chemical contamination.
Waste: A term for planned spoilage.
Watermark: A distinctive design created in paper at the time of manufacture that can be easily seen by holding the paper up to a light.
Web Offset: Presses which print offset litho but receive paper from a reel.
Web Press: A printing press which has a rotary action, and uses large rolls of paper, foil, and/or poly.
Wire-O Binding: A method of wire binding books along the binding edge that will allow the book to lay flat using double loops.
Work and Tumble: Printing one side of a sheet and turning it over from the gripper to the tail to print the second side using the same side guide and plate for the second side.
Work and Turn: Printing one side of a sheet and turning it over from left to right using the same side guides and plate for the second side.
Y
Yellow: A colour in the four colour process.