Terminology

Binding
The various methods used to secure loose leaves or sections in a book; eg saddle-stitch, spiral or perfect bound.

Bleed
Bleed is required if any part of the image or text touches or extends past the image area. 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.

Carbonless
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.

Collating
A finishing term referring to the assembling of a set of individual sheets or signatures in proper sequence for binding.

Celloglazing
Celloglazing is the thermal application of a super thin laminate film which is lightweight and flexible, making it suitable for book covers, business cards, invitations, menus or flyers. Available in matte or gloss it is a luxurious finish to any document.

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.

Coil / Spiral Binding
A type of binding where a wire or plastic spiral is looped through holes in a stack of paper.

Comb Binding
A type of mechanical binding, using a piece of rigid vinyl plastic sheeting die-cut in the shape of a comb or rake and rolled to make a cylinder of any thickness.

Compression
When a file is compressed, it is made smaller and takes up less space on a disk, as well as being able to be transmitted more quickly over a network. A compression utility (software) is used to compress the file.

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.

Crop / Trim Marks
Lines near the edges of an image showing where the page is to be trimmed after printing.

Die Cutting
The process of using sharp steel rules to cut special shapes for labels, boxes or containers from printed
sheets.

Embedding
Process of including fonts, graphics, etc, in a PostScript print file.

Embossing
A decorative finish or design achieved by damping the paper and passing it through engraved rollers. Material on which a pattern has been impressed by means of an engraved roller plate.

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.

Folding
The folding part of a printed job seems like a minor finishing touch, but it’s surprisingly complex and getting it wrong costs time and money. Folding or creasing adds interest, variety and design potential
to brochures.

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.

Grain
Direction of fibres in a sheet of paper. Long grain describes fibres running parallel to the longest side of a sheet, short grain running parallel to the short side.

GSM
This is the substance weight of paper, relating to an area of paper that remains constant, irrespective of sheet size, expressed as grams per square metre.

Hole punching
Creating holes in sheets of paper, often for the purpose of collecting the sheets in a binder or folder.

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.

Laminating
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.

Matte Finish
Dull paper or ink finish.

NCR
Refers to No Carbon Required, i.e. papers that are impregnated with capsules of chemicals during manufacture that burst when printed or written on, therefore creating the copy image. These papers are cleaner to use on multi part forms than One Time Carbon. Usually different colours NCR sheets are used to aid filing. OTC refers to One Time Carbon as put between the sheets of a multi part form to allow imaging between the parts. The OTC has to be discarded after use.

Numbering
Process of printing numbers in sequence, eg. on forms, NCR books, raffle tickets, receipts, etc.

Overprinting
Printing over an area already printed. Used to emphasise changes or alterations.

Pantone Matching System (PMS)
The Pantone Matching System is an international printing, publishing and packaging colour language providing an accurate method for the selection, presentation, specification, communication, reproduction, matching and control of colour. See Spot Colour.

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 telephone book, Microsoft software manual, or magazine.

Perforating
Used to facilitate the tearing of a sheet of paper, for example for reply forms or receipts.

PDF – Portable Document Format
A file format generated using Adobe Acrobat software. Allows a document to retain its text and graphics formatting across different computer platforms. PDF files can be viewed and printed without the original software or fonts used to create the document.

Proofing
The process of producing sample copies for customer approval prior to bulk production.

Quarter Bound
Bound with the spine of the case in one material, and the sides in another.

Resolution
Resolution is measured in the number of picture elements per measured unit. In the case of a video screen, the resolution is either measured in pixels per inch, or, by stating the total area of the screen and the number of pixels in the horizontal and vertical directions. The resolution of an output device, such as printer, it is measured in dots per inch.

RGB – Red, green and blue
The colour model that computers and the peripherals use. These include monitors and scanners, etc. Colour is created using additive primary colours red, green and blue.

Saddle Stitching
It’s a process of creating finished booklets from flat sheets with two steel staples and folding on the spine. Saddle stitched booklets should have a page count in multiples of 4 (1 flat sheet equals 4 printed pages). Booklets may have a cover of heavier stock, or stock of a different finish than the text (for example a glossy cover but uncoated text). Booklets of up to 80 pages (20 flat sheets) can be saddle stitched.

Scoring
Scoring means mechanically creasing a job. It prevents thick stock from surface splitting along a fold, leaving a ragged, unsightly edge. Greeting cards and covers on stock heavier than 200gsm are scored before being folded.

Spot Colour
Colours specified in PMS inks other than the four standard process colours. The term is also used for the use of a small amount of second colour in a job single colour usually used or 5th, 6th, etc in 4 colours.

Stapling
Stapling is a process of attaching pieces of paper together; staples are a permanent and durable fastener for paper documents, unlike the paper clip.

Trim / Crop Marks
Lines near the edges of an image showing where the page is to be trimmed after printing.

Trimming
The final stage which neatens the edges.