A

APR - Automatic Picture Replacement. The replacement of a low resolution image by a high resolution image.

ASCII - American Standard Code for Information Interchange. A standard means of representing text as numerical data.

Accordion Fold - In binding, a term used for two or more parallel folds which open like an accordion

A/W - an abbreviation for Artwork.

Acetate - a transparent sheet placed over artwork allowing the artist to write instructions or indicate where second color 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.

Additive color - in color reproduction, red, green, and blue. When lights of these three colors are added together, they produce the sensation of white light.

Ad rate card - a one sheet that lists your ad rates

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 lowercase alphabet characters in a given type size expressed in points or picas.

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

Analog color proof - off - press color proof made from separation films. Includes overlay (such as Color Key) and laminate (such as PressMatch) proofs.

Anodized plate - an offset printing plate with a specially treated surface to reduce wear during printing.

antique finish - a term describing the surface, usually on cover papers, that has a rough, natural finish.

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 - all illustration copy used in preparing a job for printing.

Artboard - Alternate term for mechanical art.

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

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

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.

Author's corrections - Also know as "AC's". Changed and additions in copy after it has been typeset.

AutoTrap - A software program that automatically applies trapping to film which is output by imagesetters. Trapping is the precise relationship between two ink colors when they butt together on a printed sheet. If no trap is added, a white gap may appear between colors. If too much trap is added, a dark line will appear where the colors overlap.

B

Backbone - the back of a bound book connecting the two covers; also known as the spine.

backing up - printing the reverse side of a sheet already printed on one side.

Backslant - letters that slant the opposite way from italic characters.

Backup - A copy of work or information saved in case the original is lost or damaged

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 - the weight in pounds of a ream (500 sheets) of paper cut to a standard size. Commonly used to indicate the thickness of the paper (i.e. 80# cover stock)

Bed - the base on which the Form 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.

Bitmap - a digital representation of a picture of object using a grid of pixels or dots.

black-and-white - originals or reproductions in a single color, as opposed to multi-color.

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

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

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.

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.

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 - Bluelines are inexpensive film proofs used to show content, page layout, folding, and color breaks on one-or two-color orders. Images on blueline proofs appear in shades of blue to the viewer and show extensive detail in contrast, shading, and halftone resolution.

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

Board - in traditional paste-up layout, a piece of material on which camera-ready artwork is attached in place. Paper of more than 200gsm. 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.

Body type - a typeface used for the main portion of text in a printed piece.

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

Bond paper - a common grade of paper which has a "flat", uncoated finish and high durability.

Book paper - a general term for coated and uncoated printing papers.

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

Bound size - The dimensions of a book or folded piece after it has been bound or folded into its finished state.

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 color - Also known as a color break. To separate mechanically or by software the parts to be printed in different colors.

Brightness - in paper, the reflectance or brilliance rating of the 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 - Thickness of paper stock in thousandths of an inch or number of pages per inch.

Bulk pack - Boxing printed product without wrapping or banding.

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 - Joining images without overlapping.

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

C

CMYK - cyan, magenta, yellow, and black--the subtractive primary colors primarily used in process color printing.

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

Caliper - Paper thickness in thousandths of an inch. Also the name of the tool used to make the measurement.

Camera ready - artwork or pasted up material that is ready for reproduction.

Camera-ready copy - Print ready mechanical art.

Cap line - an imaginary line across the top of capital letters. The distance from the cap line to the baseline is the cap size.

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 that 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 that will produce copies without carbon paper. Also referred to as NCR (No Carbon Required).

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

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

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

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 - Paper having a surface coating which gives it a smooth finish. Finishes range from neutral matte to heavy gloss. Coated papers generally produce richer, more saturated colors than uncoated papers.

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

Collate - the gathering of sheets or signatures in the order in which they will be bound.

Color balance - the correct combination of cyan, magenta, yellow, and black to reproduce a photographic image without introducing color cast.

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

Color correction - Methods of improving color separations.

Color filter - Filters uses in making color separations, red, blue, and green.

Color keys - off-press overlay color proofs using 3M color key materials.

Color matching system - A system of formulated ink colors used for communicating color.

Color proofs - see analog proofs, off-press proofs

Color separations - The process of preparing artwork, photographs, transparencies, or computer generated art for printing by separating into the four primary printing colors of yellow, magenta, cyan and black. These should not be confused with the optical primaries; red, green and blue.

Color space - a method of mathematically representing color, including gray scale, RGB, CMYK, and CIELAB

Column inch - a measure of area used in newspapers and magazines to calculate the cost of display advertising. A column inch is one column wide by one inch deep.

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 neighbor, 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 color or gray 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.

Contact print - a photographic print made from a negative or positive in contact with sensitized paper, film, or printing plate

Contrast - the tonal gradations between the highlights, midtones, and shadows in an original or reproduction. Most commonly used when dealing with photographic art.

Copy - any furnished material (text, photographs, line art, etc.) to be used in the production of printed materials.

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 term applied to a variety of papers used for the covers of magazines, catalogs, brochures, and other such materials.

Crimping - Puncture marks holding business forms together.

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.

Cromalin - off-press color proofs made using DuPont Cromalin materials.

Crop - To cut off parts of a picture or image.

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

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

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

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 the subtractive primary colors, the hue of which is used for one of the four process color printing inks. It reflects or transmits blue or green light and absorbs red light.

D

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

Dash - a short horizontal rule used for punctuation.

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

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

Density - the degree of darkness (light absorption or opacity) of a photographic image.

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 - the process of using sharp steel dies to cut special shapes in paper, board, or other material.

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 that permanently resides in the memory. Common operating systems include MS-DOS, PC-DOS (IBM's version of MS-DOS), CP/M (an operating system for older, 8-bit computers), Unix and BOS.

Digital color proof - an off-press proofing process where a composite color proof is made directly from digital date without the need for separation films. Digital proofing processes include Iris prints and dye sublimation prints.

Digital plates - plates that can be exposed directly from a digital prepress system, without using separation films.

Digital press - a printing press that has a RIP and platemaking functionality (or some alternate technology) built-in, enabling fast, affordable short-run color printing without the expenses of creating films and proofs. Digital presses are generally more cost-effective than traditional offset color printing for print runs under 5,000 pieces. Common digital presses include the Heidelberg GTO-DI and Quickmaster- DI, the Indigo E- Print, and the AGFA Chromapress.

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

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

Dot gain or spread - A term used to explain the difference in size between the dot on film v paper. A small degree of dot gain almost always occurs during printing on offset and web presses, so the effects must be compensated for during prepress.

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.

Dots per inch (DPI) - the resolution an output device (such as a laser printer or imagesetter) is capable of reproducing. The measurement of resolution for a bitmap image such as a scanned photograph.

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 - typefaces that 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.

Drawdown - A sample of ink and paper used to evaluate ink colors.

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.

Dropout - portions of originals that do not reproduce in copying or printing, especially colored-lines and light backgrounds. Dropout often occurs on purpose, as in the case with bluelines on mechanicals or paste-up boards.

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.

DTP - is the acronym for Desk Top Publishing

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

Duotone - a term for a two-color halftone reproduction from a one-color photographic image. See also tritone and quadtone.

Duplex paper - paper with a different color or finish on each side.

Dye Sublimation Proof - A digital, non-film proofing process in which CMYK dye solutions are applied to a paper carrier to approximate the final color images.

Dye transfer - a photographic color print using special coated papers to produce a full color 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 color with the correct display device. Standard EGA resolution is 640 by 350 dots in any 16 out of 64 colors.

EPSF (encapsulated PostScript file) - A file format, which allows PostScript information to be stored, edited, and easily transferred between different computer systems.

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 that 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.

Embossed finish - paper with a raise or depressed surface resembling wood, cloth, or another natural surface.

Embossing - impressing an image in relief to achieve a raised or depressed surface; either overprinting a printed image or on black paper (blind embossing).

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

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

Emulsion side - the side of the film coated with silver halide emulsion, which should face the camera lens during exposure.

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

Enamel - a term applied to a coated paper or a coating material on the paper.

End papers - the four page leaves at the front and end of a book that 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.

Exposure - the step in photographic process during which light produces the image on the light-sensitive film coating.

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 Proofs - Film proofs are created using the negatives that have been output on an imagesetter. They are highly accurate representations of what the final printed product will look like and are given to clients for final review, approval, and "sign-off" before the printing plates are made and the order is put on the press. Some examples of film proofs are Dylux, Silverprint, Blueline, Chromalin, WaterProof, Color Key and Matchprint.

Film rip - See Rip film.

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

Flat - in offset lithography, the assembled composite of negatives stripped together, ready for platemaking.

Flat Size - The dimensions of a brochure or printed piece before it is folded up.

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

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

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

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

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

Folio - the page number.

Format - the size, style, type page, margins, printing requirements, etc. for a printed piece.

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

Form - in offset printing, the assembly of pages for printing.

Four (4)-color-process - The process of combining four basic colors to create a printed color picture or colors composed from the basic four colors-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.

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

Full point - a full stop.

G

GEM - Digital Research's 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 DR's own GEM Desktop Publisher operate under this environment

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

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

Gamma - a measure of contract in photographic images and on color computer monitors.

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.

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 color 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 - A shiny look reflecting light.

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

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 fibers 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 gray are used to simulate lines of text.

Grey scale - 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.

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 or from printing area to binding

H

Hairline rule - the thinnest rule that can be printed about the width of a hair or 1/100 inch

Hairlines - the thinnest of the strokes in a typeface.

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.

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.

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

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

Highlight - the lightest area in a photograph or illustration.

High contract - in photography, a reproduction with high gamma in which the difference in darkness (density) between neighboring areas is greater than the original.

Highlight - the lightest or whitest parts of a photograph represented by a halftone reproduction by the smallest dots or a complete absence of dots.

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.

Hue - in color, the main attribute of a color, which distinguishes it from other colors.

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.

Imagesetter - a device commonly found at prepress shops or printers that takes digital information from a RIP and renders type, line art, and photographs onto film or photographic paper. Such companies as Linotype-Hell, AGFA, Scitex, and DuPont manufacture Imagesetters.

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 - Putting an image on paper.

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

Indicia - Postal information placed on a printed product.

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

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

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

Insert - a printed piece prepared for insertion into a publication or another printed piece.

International paper sizes - the International Standards Organization (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 Corporation's 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

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 or KB (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 - in artwork, an outline drawing of finished art to indicate the exact size, shape, and position for such elements as photographic art, line sketches, and other page elements.

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 paper containing unbleached (brown) wood pulp used for packing.

L

Lacquer - a clear, usually glossy, coating applied to a printed sheet for protection or appearance. Also see varnish.

Laid - paper with a watermark pattern showing the wire marks used in the paper making process. Simulating the surface of handmade paper, it is usually used for high quality stationery.

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

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

Laser - The acronym for Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation. A laser is an intense beam with very narrow bandwidth that can produce images by electronic impulses from digital data.

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.

Laser Proofs - Laser proofs are black and white or CMYK digital, non-film proofs which can be run out as composites or as color separated sheets. Lasers are used to check spelling, grammar, image placement and photo cropping. Lasers are the least expensive forms of proofing available; however, they are also the least accurate for image detail and color matching.

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 rubdown 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 that 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).

Line screen - the measure of a halftone screen, usually in lines per inch (LPI).

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

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

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

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.