Sometimes there seems to be lots of jargon involved in printing so below is a quick guide to help.
‘A’ sizes
Most common paper size used for general printing, stationery and publications.
Artwork
Finished layout of typesetting, drawings and photographs, made up in a form, which is ready for the printer to print.
Back up
To print on the reverse side of a printed sheet.
CMYK / 4 Colours
Letters which stand for the main print colours Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black (K).
Crop Marks
Printed lines on the edge of paper indicating where the paper should be cut to produce the correct page size.
Digital Printing
Printing straight from the electronic artwork (no plates used as with litho print). Typically printed out of 4 colour process. It's ideal for short runs up to 1000 mark.
Dummy
A sample of a proposed job made up with the actual materials and cut to size to show how the final print will look.
EPS
Encapsulated Postscript File. This is a file format which can be read across different programmes - on MAC or PC computers.
Font
A set of letters, numbers and symbols that share a unified design. The design is called a typeface.
Four Colour Process
Full colour printing using four constituent colours: Cyan, Yellow, Magenta and Black.
GSM
Grams per square metre - standard measure of paper weight.
JPEG
Joint Photographic Experts Group. A type of file for image files. Use JPEG images for photographs and other images that have millions of colours. It uses a complex compression algorithm that allows you to create smaller graphics by losing some of the quality of the image.
Laminating
A thin plastic film used on the covers of printed literature to give protection. This can be gloss or matt.
PDF
Portable Document Format - A pdf is a special file type that combines images, drawings, layouts and text into one file for easy delivery to or from the printer. This file is created in software called Adobe Distiller and opened in Acrobatic Reader. PDFs provide a very useful tool for proofing purposes, as what you see is what you get.
Resolution
Refers to the degree of detail of an image. It is usually measured in dots per inch (dpi) or lines per inch (lpi). A high resolution gives a high quality image and vice versa.
Saddle-stitch
When the pages of a printed document, e.g. a leaflet, is bound together using metal staples.
Special Colour
A colour which cannot be made up of the 4 component colours - CMYK. They are listed in a pantone colour swatch book. For example, if a corporate logo contains a special blue and is included in a brochure with photographs and text, it is termed a five colour job. (CMYK + picture + text) + special blue = 5 colours.
Spread
Two or more adjoining pages that would appear in view on a sheet.
Tint
Percentage shade of a colour.
TIFF
Tagged Image File Format. A type of file which stores an image. TIFF is good for any type of bitmap (pixel-based) images. TIFF produces large files, but there is no loss in quality.
Typo
Short for typographical error - a mistake in the copy.
Varnishes
Special varnishes applied to printed matter to protect from ink smudging or finger marking, or to enhance appearance. There are five main types - machine, gloss, matt, silk and UV. Varnishes are commonly used on matt or silk coated paper, as these types are more prone to smudging than gloss coated paper. Varnish applied to a specific area of a document is known as spot varnish, and when it is applied to the whole document, it is termed as an overall varnish (or less commonly as a flood varnish).
