Printing glossary

Printing alignment markings on a printed material

Illustrations extending beyond the format of the printed material, perhaps due to inaccurate trimming

Connects the textblock to the boards or cover. Soft (V1, V2, V3 and V4), semi-hard (V5 and V6) and hard (V7, V8a, V8b, V8c and V9) bindings are used

The outer cover of the textblock comprised of sides and the spine: the boards themselves are faced with paper, cloth, leather or another material. …

Printed sheets of paper arranged in their proper order are called the book sheets.

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A thin coloured ribbon affixed to the upper edge of the spine of the book block used to save a specific place in the book.

Braille is a system of characters for the visually impaired using a set of raised dots with regular spacing and configurations into different repeating groups

A colour model combining four basic colours – cyan, magenta, yellow and key (black) that are used to create full-colour images in the printing profession

The number of colours on the first or second side of a material, i.e. 4/1 refers to a four-colour model (full-colour, typically CMYK) for printing the print sheet from one side and a single-colour (typically black but may be any other PANTONE direct colour) for printing the print sheet from the other side.

The process of dividing full-colour master prints into four basic colours (CMYK) using individual colour filters.

The configuration of text and illustrations into the given page format.

Materials printed on thicker paper to be folded must first be creased at the location of such a fold to ensure the paper does not crack or tear when folded.

Copy-To-Plate is an imaging technology that transfers the copy directly to the printing plate

More information is provided here /Technologies/

Tool for measuring density

Density of colour tone

Dots Per Inch, which specifies the number of pixels within the length of one inch. One inch is 2.54 centimetres.  This detail is critical for determining the resolution of delivered images.

A protective, printed paper with pockets that is placed over the book cover as additional protection against damage or soiling.

A coloured or other (e.g. gold) appliqué typically applied to the head of a trimmed book with a decorative and a protective purpose

The material used to finish book boards. Cloth, artificial leather, laminated coated paper, BO paper, etc. may be used.

The FEFCO catalogue is the European code of cardboard products that includes basic and standard types of cardboard product designs, including internal fixation, using simple international symbols.

A blank page anywhere in a book

A place where paper overlaps as a result of folding

Folding printed sheets to the desired size

Several individual cardboard segments connected by flexible cloth and with illustrations on both sides that fold together in an alternating pattern and trimmed on the top and bottom.

The dimension of a print expressed by width and height (with depth used in the case of 3D materials), with standard formats specified as follows:

A – formats B – formats C – formats

A0 – 841 x 1189 mm B0 – 1000 x 1414 mm C0 – 917 x 1297 mm

A1 – 594 x 841 mm B1 – 707 x 1000 mm C1 – 648 x 917 mm

A2 – 420 x 594 mm B2 – 500 x 707 mm C2 – 458 x 648 mm

A3 – 297 x 420 mm B3 – 353 x 500 mm C3 – 324 x 458 mm

A4 – 210 x 297 mm B4 – 250 x 353 mm C4 – 229 x 324 mm

A5 – 148 x 210 mm B5 – 176 x 250 mm C5 – 162 x 229 mm

A6 – 105 x 148 mm B6 – 125 x 176 mm C6 – 114 x 162 mm

A7 – 74 x 105 mm B7 – 88 x 125 mm C7 – 81 x 114 mm

A8 – 52 x 74 mm B8 – 62 x 88 mm C8 – 57 x 81 mm

A printing method where different and separated printed colours are printed together in an overlapping manner to create other tones, a feature typically used to make counterfeiting more difficult

Shades of grey

Fine line ornamental decoration primarily used as a complex edge decoration on papers used for securities to make counterfeiting more difficult

A decorative textile lining adhered to the edge of the textblock to cover the gap between the spine of the textblock and the book boards.

This is a double sheet of thicker paper used in books with a rigid binding to connect the textblock to the book boards. There are two inner hinges in a book, front and back. The textblock in soft cover books is adhered directly to the covers without using inner hinges.

A surface finish for printed materials (structured, gloss or matte)

Adhering two or more sheets of paper, carton, cardboard on top of one another manually or using a machine

The assembly of individual, typically printed sheets or book components on top of each other in a specific order and number to create a complete assembly (i.e. a textblock)

Lines Per Inch, indicates the density of the raster (grid) into which the individual pixels of an image may be placed

A set of information containing the technical details and identification of the publisher (the masthead is often used as the name of an entire page with this block of information)

A hand-made sample showing how the finished printed product should look after completion

Number of pages in a printed material

The basic material used to manufacture printed materials. Papers are essentially classified as follows: Uncoated papers: woodfree offset (white and yellow), suitable for printing on sheet and rotary presses, colour and B/W publications; volume paper (white and yellow), suitable for printing on sheet and rotary presses, only recommended for printing B/W publications; recycled paper (natural, varicoloured), suitable for printing on sheet presses

Coated papers: – single-sided coated paper (gloss or matte), suitable for printing on a sheet press for colour and B/W publications, primarily used for greeting cards where the coated side is printed in full colour and the uncoated side remains suitable for writing with a pen, etc. – double-sided coated paper (gloss or matte), suitable for printing on sheet and rotary presses for colour and B/W publications

Special papers: self-adhesive, labels, carbonless – the names of which clearly indicate their uses

Graphic coated carton and cardboard: these are multi-layer cardboards with a white top coating and various middle and bottom layers. They are suitable depending on individual levels of quality (GC1, GC2, GD2, GD3) to produce packaging (folding boxes), blister packs and general graphical processing

Bookbinding cardboard: this cardboard is primarily suited for lamination and bookbinding to produce binders, games and various advertising banners and stands. Their individual levels of quality are divided into:

– GREY-GREY

– WHITE-GREY

– WHITE-WHITE

This is the basis weight of 1 m2 of paper (from 8-149 g/m2), carton (over 150 g/m2) or cardboard (nad 230 g/m2 with a small number of layers or over 400 g/m2 with a large number of layers) expressed in g/m2.

A PDF file used to check the arrangement of text and illustrations

Continuous punching or cutting of paper or other material, which ensures trouble-free tearing off of its part (eg tear-off coupon, forms, etc.).

Marking each printed item with a special text from a database

A pixel is the smallest element of a raster display or digital image and contains information as to the intensity and colour of a shade.

Total number of printed items produced

A credible preview before printing that is used to check the arrangement of text and illustrations, and the colour scheme

Checked and approved sample sheets

Markup to identify corrections and errors (i.e. in the text)

A grid that determines resolution. Standard rasters (e.g. AM raster) are used and their resolution is determined by the LPI value; stochastic rasters permit a higher resolution rendering of details and are not defined by the LPI value. A stochastic raster is used only for selected technologies.

Manual, mechanical or photo mechanical corrections made to the master print, negative or positive print or printing plates to eliminate deficiencies and defects and perfect the resulting printed reproductions

A colour space combining 3 basic colours, red, green and blue

A set of sheets that are glued together, typically in a strip, and that may be separated by perforations

Width of the textblock where the individual pages or elements are connected, may be straight or rounded

A binding that connects individual sheets into a complete block using a spiral made of wire or another material

Used to highlight a design on the desired part of a printed material

Imprinting text or an illustration by applying pressure. Stamping may use a relief (embossing) or heat stamping (using a multi-coloured foil) or a combination of the two

Stitching connects book components or individual sheets with a wire (in the spine, connecting all components laid on top of one another into a single element, from the side, where staples cut through all the pages or components laying on top of one another from the top down) or thread (spine stitching from above using a longer thread stitch)

More information is provided here /Technologies/

Sewn or glued book sheets (the sheets may be trimmed or untrimmed) with the front and rear inner hinges glued on but without the book boards

A thick layer of varnish that highlights a printed material (gloss or matte)

A surface finish for printed materials (gloss or matte)

Cutting out of an opening in a box for merchandise and its sealing with PET foil