M

M - abbreviation for 1,000.

M (Megabyte) - one million bytes.

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

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

Magenta - 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 and red light and absorbs green light.

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

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

Make-ready - All the activities required to prepare a press for printing or a binder for binding.

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

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

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

Margins - the non-printing areas of page.

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

Mask - an opaque material used to protect selected open elements of artwork on a printing plate during exposure.

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

Matchprint - Trade name for 3M integral color proof.

Matte finish - dull paper finish without gloss or luster.

Matte print - a photo print having a dull finish.

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

Mechanical - a term for camera ready paste-up of artwork. It includes type, photos, line art, etc., all on one piece of artboard.

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

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

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

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

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

Metallic ink - printing inks that produce an effect gold, silver, bronze or metallic colors.

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

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

Midtones - the tonal range between highlights and shadows in a photographic image.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mottle - a spotty or uneven appearance of printed material, mostly in areas of solid color.

Mounting board - a heavy board used for mounting artwork.

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

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

Mutt - a typesetting term for the em space.

O

Oblique stroke - (/)

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

Off-press proofs - proofs made by photomechanical or digital means, generally resulting in faster turnaround and lower costs than those involved in on-press proofing.

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

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

Offset paper - Term for uncoated book paper.

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

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

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

Onion skin - a translucent lightweight paper used in airmail stationery.

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

Opaque - to paint out areas of a negative not wanted on a plate.

Opaque ink - ink that conceals all color beneath it.

Optical center - a point above the true center of the page that will not appear ‘low’ as the geometric center does.

Optical Disks - disks on which large amounts of information can be stored in binary form representing characters of text or images.

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

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

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

Overlay - in artwork, a transparent covering over the copy where color break, corrections, or instructions are marked. Also, transparent or translucent prints which, when laid over one another, form a composite image.

Overprinting - printing over an area already printed. Used to emphasize changes or alterations.

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

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

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

P

PMS - The abbreviated name of the Pantone color Matching System.

PMT - Abbreviated name for photomechanical transfer. Often used to make position prints.

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

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

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

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

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

Pagination - the numbering of pages in a book.

Pantone - a registered name for an ink color matching system.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Perfecting press - a printing press that prints both sides of the paper at one pass through the machine.

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

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

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

Picking - the effect of ink being too tacky and lifting fibers out of the paper. Shows up as small white dots on areas of solid color.

Pin register - A standard used to fit film to film and film to plates and plates to press to assure the proper registration of printer colors.

Pipelining - the ability of a program to flow automatically text from the end of one column or page to the beginning of the next. An extra level of sophistication can be created by allowing the flow to be re-directed to any page and not just the next available. This is ideal for US-style magazines where everything is 'Continued on page...'.

Pixel - in electronic imaging, a basic unit in digital imaging. Pixels can be used to represent text or color information for photographic artwork.

Plate gap - Gripper space. The area where the grippers hold the sheet as it passes through the press.

Plates - Plates are the carriers of the images that are to be printed on paper. One printing plate is required for each ink color printed. Metal plates are currently the only way to produce high quality close-register printed images. Plates can also be made out of plastic and paper.

Point - a unit of measurement primarily used in typography, used for specifying type sizes, leading, rule widths, and other page elements. 12 points make up a pica, and 72 points make approximately 1 inch in traditional measurement, whereas most electronic imaging tools round 72 points (or 6 picas) up to exactly 1 inch. Point size is the measured from the top of the ascender to the bottom of the descender.

Portrait - an upright image or page where the height is greater than the width.

Position proof - color proof for checking position layout and/or color breakout image elements.

Positive - in photography, film containing the same light and dark values as the original. The reverse of negative.

PostScript - a page description language developed by Adobe Systems. Widely supported by both hardware and software vendors it represents the current 'standard' in the market. John Warnock and Chuck Geschke of Adobe both worked for Xerox at the Palo Alto Research Center where PDLs were invented and set up their company to commercially exploit the concepts they had helped develop.

Pre-press proofs - see off-press proofs.

Press proofs - in color reproduction, a proof of a color subject made directly on the printing press, in advance of a full production run.

Pressure-sensitive paper - Paper material with self-sticking adhesive covered by a backing sheet.

Preview mode - a mode where word processing or desktop publishing software that doesn’t operate in WYSIWYG fashion can show a representation of the output, as it will look when printed. The quality ranges from acceptable to useless.

Primary colors - cyan, magenta and yellow. These three colors when mixed together with black will produce a reasonable reproduction of all other colors.

Print engine - the parts of a page printer that perform the print-imaging, fixing and paper transport. In fact, everything but the controller.

Printer Command Language - a language developed by Hewlett Packard for use with its own range of printers. Essentially a text orientated language; it has been expanded to give graphics capability.

Print quality - a general term for the overall visual impression of a printed piece. In paper, the properties of the paper that affect its appearance and the quality of reproduction.

Process blue - The blue or cyan color in process printing.

Process colors - The four basic colors of ink used in process color printing are cyan, magenta, yellow and black. These ink colors are transparent and "process" with each other when overprinted in predetermined amounts, i.e. when cyan overprints yellow, it produces green, when yellow overprints magenta, it produces orange. Controlled screen tint combinations of the four basic colors allow nearly the full spectrum of colors to be produced on a printing press.

Process Color Separations - Color separation refers to the breaking down of any full-color image into the four basic ink colors used in printing. The making of a color separation involves the use of a laser light scanner which, through the use of four color filtering systems, can read and record the amounts of cyan, magenta, yellow and black that is present in any particular area of a color original. The recording of this data is converted into digital form and saved to a computer for further processing and placement into page layout programs.

Process printing - the printing from a series of two or more halftone plates to produce intermediate colors and shades.

Progressives - color proofs taken at each stage of printing showing each color printed singly and then superimposed on the preceding color.

Proof - a copy obtained from inked type, plate, block or screen for checking purposes.

Proof correction marks - a standard set of signs and symbols used in copy preparation and to indicate corrections on proofs. Marks are placed both in the text and in the margin.

Proportional spacing - a method of spacing whereby each character is spaced to accommodate the varying widths of letters or figures, so increasing readability. Books and magazines are set proportionally spaced, typewritten documents are generally monospaced.

Pull-down menus - developed from Xerox research (like just about everything else we take for granted in desktop publishing) these are a method of providing user control over software without cluttering up the screen with text. Using the mouse or cursor keys the user points to the main heading of the menu he or she wants and the menu pulls (Windows) or drops (GEM) from the heading. When the required function has been selected the menu rolls back up into the menu bar leaving the screen clear.

Pulp - the raw material used in papermaking consisting mainly of wood chips, rags or other fibers. Broken down by mechanical or chemical means.

Q

Quadding - the addition of space to fill out a line of type using en or em blocks.

Quire - 1/20th of a ream (25 sheets).

R

RGB - red, green, and blue - the primary additive colors, which are used to represent colors on computer monitors, television screens, and most scanners.

Rag paper - high quality stationery made from cotton rags.

Ragged - lines of type that do not start or end at the same position.

Ragged left - Type that is justified to the right margin and the line lengths vary on the left.

Ragged right - Type that is justified to the left margin and the line lengths vary on the right.

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 result should, if the device has been properly designed, be the same. Typical RIPs, which aren’t PDL-based, include the Tall Trees JLaser, the LaserMaster and AST's TurboLaser controller. A basic page printer comes with a controller and not a RIP, which goes some way to explaining the lack of control

Ream - 500 sheets of paper.

Recto - Right-hand page of an open book.

Reference marks - symbols used in text to direct the reader to a footnote. E.g. asterisk (*), dagger, double dagger, section mark (), paragraph mark ().

Reflective copy - Copy that is not transparent.

Register - To position print in the proper position in relation to the edge of the sheet and to other printing on the same sheet especially when printing one color on another.

Register marks - Cross-hair lines or marks on film, plates, and paper that guide strippers, platemakers, pressmen, and bindery personnel in processing a print order from start to finish.

Resolution - the measurement used in typesetting to express quality of output. Measured in dots per inch, the greater the number of dots, the more smooth and cleaner appearance the character/image will have. Currently Page (laser) Printers print at 300, 406 and 600dpi. Typesetting machines print at 1,200 dpi or more.

Rest in Proportion (RIP) - an instruction when giving sizes to artwork or photographs that other parts of the artwork are to be enlarged or reduced in proportion.

Retouching - a means of altering artwork or color separations to correct faults or enhance the image.

Reverse - The opposite of what you see. Printing the background of an image. For example: type your name on a piece of paper. The reverse of this would be a black piece of paper with a white name.

Revise - indicates the stages at which corrections have been incorporated from earlier proofs and new proofs submitted. E.g. First revise, second revise.

Right reading - a positive or negative that reads from left to right.

Rip film - A method of making printing negatives from PostScript files created by desktop publishing.

Roman - type which has vertical stems as distinct from Italics or oblique that are set at angles.

Rotary press - a web or reel fed printing press, which uses a curved printing plate mounted on the plate cylinder.

Rough - a preliminary sketch of a proposed design.

Royal - a size of printing paper 20in x 25in (508 x 635mm).

Ruler - rulers displayed on the screen that show measures in inches, picas or millimeters.

Runaround (see also Text wrap) - the ability within a program to run text around a graphic image within a document, without the need to adjust each line manually.

Running head - a line of type at the top of a page, which repeats a heading.

S

S/S (Same size) - an instruction to reproduce to the same size as the original.

Saddle stitching - a method of binding where the folded pages are stitched through the spine from the outside, using wire staples.

Sans serif - a typeface that has no serifs (small strokes at the end of main stroke of the character).

Scale - the means within a program to reduce or enlarge the amount of space an image will occupy. Some programs maintain the aspect ratio between width and height whilst scaling, thereby avoiding distortion.

Scaling - a means of calculating the amount of enlargement or reduction necessary to accommodate a photograph within the area of a design.

Scamp - a sketch of a design showing the basic concept.

Scanner - an electronic device used to digitize a photographic image. A wide variety of scanners are available for digitizing all kinds of originals, from photographic prints and 35 mm slides to video clips and 3D objects.

Scraperboard - a board prepared with black Indian ink over a china clay surface. Drawings are produced by scraping away the ink to expose the china clay surface.

Score - A crease put on paper to help it fold better.

Screen angles - in color reproduction, the angle at which the halftone screens are placed in relationship to one another, to avoid undesirable moiré patterns. The most commonly used screen angles in process color printing are black 45, magenta 75, yellow 90, cyan 105.

Screen ruling - the number of lines per inch on a halftone screen. See also line screen.

Section mark () - a character used at the beginning of a new section. Also used as a footnote symbol.

Section - a printed sheet folded to make a multiple of pages.

Security paper - paper incorporating special features (dyes, watermarks etc) for use on checks.

Self-cover - Using the same paper as the text for the cover.

Sell through - percentage of what you actually sell

Serif - a small cross stroke at the end of the main stroke of the letter.

Set size - the width of the type body of a given point size.

Set solid - type set without leading (line spacing) between the lines. Type is often set with extra space; e.g. 9 point set on 10 point.

Set off - the accidental transfer of the printed image from one sheet to the back of another.

Shadow - the darkest parts of a photograph, represented in the halftone by the largest dots, or in solid areas of black.

Sheet - a single piece of paper. In poster work refers to the number of Double Crown sets in a full size poster.

Sheet fed - a printing press that prints single sheets of paper, not reels.

Sheetwise - a method of printing a section. Half the pages from a section are imposed and printed. The remaining half of the pages are then printed on the other side of the sheet.

Show-through - Printing on one side of a sheet that can be seen on the other side of the sheet. Also see opacity

Side guide - The mechanical register unit on a printing press that positions a sheet from the side.

Side heading - a subheading set flush into the text at the left edge.

Side stabbed or stitched - the folded sections of a book are stabbed through with wire staples at the binding edge, prior to the covers being drawn on.

Sidebar - a vertical bar positioned usually on the right hand side of the screen.

Silhouette halftone - A term used for an outline halftone.

Signature - the name given to a printed sheet after it has been folded. Also a section of a magazine or book printed on a web press. Signatures can be in configurations of 4, 8, 16, 24, or more pages, according to the size of the press.

Sixteen sheet - a poster size measuring 120in x 80in (3050mm x 2030mm).

Size - a solution based on starch or casein, which is added to the paper to reduce ink absorbency.

Skid - A pallet used for a pile of cut sheets.

Slurring - a smearing of the image caused by paper slipping during the impression stage.

Small caps - a set of capital letters which are smaller than standard and are equal in size to the lower case letters for that typesize.

Snap-to (guide or rules) - a WYSIWYG program feature for accurately aligning text or graphics. The effect is exercised by various non-printing guidelines such as column guides, margin guides that automatically places the text or graphics in the correct position flush to the column guide when activated by the mouse. The feature is optional and can be turned off.

Soft back/cover - a book bound with a paper back cover.

Soft or discretionary hyphen - a specially coded hyphen, which is only displayed when formatting of the hyphenated word puts it at the end of a line.

Specifications - A precise description of a print order or a description of materials provided.

Spell check - a facility contained in certain word-processing and page makeup programs to enable a spelling error check to be carried out. Dictionaries of American origin may not conform to English standards and the option should be available within the program to modify the contents. Dictionaries usually contain between 60,000-100,000 words.

Spine - the binding edge at the back of a book or publication - also see Backbone.

Spiral binding - a book bound with wires in spiral form inserted through holes punched through the binding side.

Split fountain - Putting multiple colored ink in a printing fountain to achieve special color affects.

Spoilage - Planned paper waste for all printing operations.

Spot Colors - See PMS Colors

Spot Color Separations - When spot colors (or PMS colors) are being used in a printing order, the identification and assignment of each color can be done in a page layout program. This process is done by the person designing the page.

Spot varnish - Varnish used to highlight a specific part of the printed sheet.

SRA - a paper size in the series of ISO international paper sizes slightly larger than the A series allowing the printer extra space to bleed.

Stamping - Term for foil stamping.

Stat - Term for inexpensive print of line copy or halftone (Photostat copy).

Stem - the main vertical stroke making up a type character.

Step-and-repeat - A procedure for placing the same image on plates in multiple places.

Stet - used in proof correction work to cancel a previous correction. From the Latin 'let it stand'.

Stock - paper or other material to be printed on.

Strap - a subheading used above the main headline in a newspaper article.

Stripping - in offset lithography, the positioning of negatives on a flat to compose a page or layout for platemaking.

Strawboard - a thicker board made from straw pulp, used in bookwork and in the making of envelopes and cartons. Not suitable for printing.

Strike-through - the effect of ink soaking through the printed sheet.

Style sheet - a collection of tags specifying page layout styles, paragraph settings and type specifications which can be set up by the user and saved for use in other documents. Some page makeup programs, such as Ventura, come with a set of style sheets.

Subscript - the small characters set below the normal letters or figures.

Substance weight - A term of basis weight when referring to bond papers.

Substrate - Any surface on which printing is done.

Subtractive primaries - yellow, magenta, and cyan, the hues used for process color printing ink.

Supercalendered paper - a smooth finished paper with a polished appearance, produced by rolling the paper between calenders. Examples of this are high gloss and art papers.

Superscript - the small characters set above the normal letters or figures.

Surprint (US) - (see Overprinting) printing over a previously printed area of either text or graphics.

Swash letters - italic characters with extra flourishes used at the beginning of chapters.

Swatch - a color sample.

T

Tabloid - a page half the size of a broadsheet.

Tabular setting - text set in columns such as timetables.

Tagged Image File Format (TIFF) - a common format for interchanging digital information, generally associated with grayscale or bitmap data.

Tags - the various formats that make up a style sheet - paragraph settings, margins and columns, page layouts, hyphenation and justification, widow and orphan control and automatic section numbering.

Tektronix Proof - Tektronix proofs are digital color proofs that are used for preliminary proofing of the text, scans, cropping, sizing and color breaks. They are not accurate enough to use as final color proofs.

Template - a standard layout usually containing basic details of the page dimensions.

Text - the written or printed material which forms the main body of a publication.

Text paper - Grades of uncoated paper with textured surfaces.

Text type - typefaces used for the main text of written material. Generally no larger than 14 point in size.

Text wrap - see Runaround

Thermography - a print finishing process producing a raised image imitating die stamping. The process takes a previously printed image, which before the ink is dry is dusted with a resinous powder. The application of heat causes the ink and powder to fuse and a raised image is formed.

Thin space - the thinnest space normally used to separate words.

Thirty-two sheet - a poster size measuring 120in x 160in (3048mm x 4064mm).

Threaded or chained (US) - see Pipelining.

Thumbnails - the first ideas or sketches of a designer noted down for future reference.

Tied letters - see Ligature.

Tint - the effect of adding white to a solid color or of screening a solid area.

Tip in - the separate insertion of a single page into a book either during or after binding by pasting one edge.

Tissue overlay - Usually a thin transparent paper placed over artwork for protection uses for marking color breaks and other printer instructions.

Tone line process - the process of producing line art from a continuous tone original.

Toner - imaging material used in electrophotography (photocopying), laser printing, and some digital presses.

Toolbox - an on screen mouse operated facility that allows the user to choose from a selection of 'tools' to create simple geometric shapes - lines, boxes, circles etc. and to add fill patterns.

Tooth - a characteristic of paper, a slightly rough finish that permits it to more readily absorb ink.

Transfer tape - A peel and stick tape used in business forms.

Transparency - A positive photographic slide on film allowing light to pass through.

Transparent copy - A film that light must pass through for it to be seen or reproduced.

Transparent ink - A printing ink that does not conceal the color under it.

Trapping - The ability to print one ink over the other.

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 - Similar to crop or register marks. These marks show where to trim the printed sheet.

Trim size - The final size of one printed image after the last trim is made.

Turnkey - a system designed for a specific user and to work as an integrated unit. Usually has a built-in contractual responsibility for hardware and software maintenance.

Twin wire - paper which has an identical smooth finish on both sides.

Typeface - the raised surface carrying the image of a type character cast in metal. Also used to refer to a complete set of characters forming a family in a particular design or style.

Typescript - a typed manuscript.

Typo (US) - an abbreviation for typographical error. An error in the typeset copy.

Typographer - a specialist in the design of printed matter, and in particular the art of typography.

Typography - the design and planning of printed matter using type.

U

U&lc - an abbreviation for UPPER and lower case.

Universal Copyright Convention (UCC) - gives protection to authors or originators of text, photographs or illustrations etc, to prevent use without permission or acknowledgment. The publication should carry the copyright mark c, the name of the originator and the year of publication.

Under-run - Production of fewer copies than ordered. See over run.

-Up - in printing, two-up, three-up, etc. refers to imposition of material to be printed on a larger size sheet in order to take advantage of the press' full capacity.

UV coating - Liquid laminate bonded and cured with ultraviolet light. Environmentally friendly.

V

Varnish - a finishing process whereby a transparent varnish is applied over the printed sheet to produce a glossy finish for looks and protection. (UV coating looks better.)

Vellum - the treated skin of a calf used as a writing material. The name is also used to describe a thick creamy book paper.

Ventura Publisher - the desktop publishing package marketed by Xerox. The Ventura approach is a document- oriented one working on the basis that each page will have a similar format. The package with its lends itself to the production of manuals and directories.

Verso - The left-hand page of an open book.

Vertical justification - the ability to adjust the interline spacing (leading) and manipulation of text in fine increments to make columns and pages end at the same point on a page.

Vignette - an illustration or photograph in which the background gradually fades away until it blends in with the unprinted paper.

W

Wash-up - Removing printing ink from a press, washing the rollers and blanket. Certain ink colors require multiple wash-ups to avoid ink and chemical contamination.

Waste - A term for planned spoilage.

Watermark - an impression incorporated in the paper making process showing the name of the paper and/or the company logo.

Web - a continuous roll of printing paper used on web-fed presses.

Web press - The name of a type of presses that print from rolls of paper.

Weight - the degree of boldness or thickness of a letter or font.

Wf - an abbreviation for 'wrong font'. Used when correcting proofs to indicate where a character is in the wrong typeface.

Widow - a single word left on the last line of a paragraph that falls at the top of a page.

Windows - a software technique that allows a rectangular area of a computer screen to display output from a program. With a number of programs running at one time, several windows can appear on the screen at one time. Information can be cut and pasted from one window to another. The best known version of "windows" is that developed by Microsoft.

Wire - the wire mesh used at the wet end of the paper making process. The wire determines the textures of the paper.

Wire O - A bindery trade name for mechanical binding using double loops of wire through a hole.

Wire-O binding - A method of wire binding books along the binding edge that will allow the book to lay flat using double loops. See Wire O.

Wire stitching - see saddle or side stitching.

With the grain - Folding or feeding paper into the press or folder parallel to the grain of the paper.

Woodfree paper - made from chemical pulp only with size added. Supplied calendered or supercalendered.

Word break - the division of a word at the end of a line.

Word wrap - in word processing, the automatic adjustment of the number of words on a line of text to match the margin settings. The carriage returns set up by this method are termed "soft", as against "hard" carriage returns resulting from the return key being pressed.

Work and turn - a method of printing where pages are imposed in one form or assembled on one film. One side is then printed and the sheet is then turned over and printed from the other edge using the same form. The finished sheet is then cut to produce two complete copies.

Work and tumble - a method of printing where pages are again imposed together. The sheet is then printed on one side with the sheet being turned or tumbled from front to rear to print the opposite side.

Wove - a finely textured paper without visible wire marks.

WYSIWYG What-you-see-is-what-you-get (pronounced "wizzywig") - used to describe systems that preview full pages on the screen with text and graphics. The term can however be a little misleading due to difference in the resolution of the computer screen and that of the page printer.

X

X-height - the height of a letter excluding the ascenders and descenders; e.g. 'x', which is also height of the main body.

Xerography - a photocopying/printing process in which the image is formed using the electrostatic charge principle. The toner replaces ink and can be dry or liquid. Once formed, the image is sealed by heat. Most page printers currently use this method of printing.

Y

Yellow - 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 red and green light and absorbs blue light.