Section Topics

[Glossary of Publishing Terms]

Help

[Topics Index]

[Site Map]

[Word Search]

Glossary of Publishing Terms

Alphabetic Search

A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z

Word Search

To search for a specific word or phrase click on the Internet Explorer or Netscape Navigator Edit menu and select Search or Find. If a search using the whole word or phrase gets no result, just search again using the first three or four characters of the main word. To look for the word in entries other than the first one found, click on the Edit menu and select Search Again or Find Again. Other browsers usually have similar search facilities.

A

A - The A series of paper sizes is an ISO standard of sizes. Going down the range of sizes, each sheet size is half the area of the one above (A0 has twice the area of A1, A1 has twice the area of A2 etc). But the ratio of short side to long side is the same for all sheet sizes.

AA - author’s alteration (change marked up on a proof which is not a printer’s error).

abrasion resistance - ability of ink of substrate to resist scuffing and scratching.

accordion fold - set of parallel folds in a sheet of a paper such that it opens like an accordion.

acetate - a clear sheet of cellulose which can be placed for protection on a bound document or used for marking colour separation instructions when placed over a camera ready, pasted-up artwork.

acetone - a type of solvent.

achromatic - colourless.

acid-free paper - paper which has little or no acidic chemicals and thus has a prolonged life.

additive colours/additive primaries - red, green and blue light. These colours when combined on screen form a white dot. Additive colours are formed by transmission rather than by absorption. Monitor screens transmit light which combines to produce a colour, whereas inks on paper absorb certain frequencies of white light letting only certain colours be reflected to create the appearance.

adhesive binding - binding using glue or gum such as perfect binding.

advance - part payment given to author on signing of contract in advance of profits made from book being published.

advance sheets - folded and collated sheets shown to the publisher for approval before a book is bound.

against the grain - at right angles to the long chain polymers which make up the paper.

agate - American typesetting measure equivalent to five and a half points (American Newspapers sometimes use number of agate lines per column width for ad space). Called ruby by UK printers.

air - blank space around elements on a page.

airbrush - pen shaped air-pressure driven gun which sprays ink or paint. Creates blurs of tone and is used to remove blemishes in photos. Often mentioned in terms of removing skins blemishes and visible veins on magazine photos of people.

ALCS - The Authors’ Licensing and Collecting Society.

alley - see gutter.

alignment - the lining up of visual elements such as type, images and graphs at the left, right, top, bottom or multiple edges.

alphabet length - a width measure used in copy fitting equal to a complete set of lower case letters of a given size of a specific font.

alphanumeric - pertaining to a full set of letters and numbers. Often used to describe a standard computer or typewriter keyboard.

anamorphic scaling - scaling where a picture is enlarge or decreased in area, but the ratio of the horizontal length to the vertical length is not kept the same, producing a stretched or squashed look.

antique paper - a type of paper used in book printing which has a rough finish, is relatively cheap and can make a book look more bulked out.

appearing size/apparent size - the actual size of type rather than its point size. Different typefaces can have the same point size but a different appearing size (eg 12 point Times looks physically smaller to the eye than 12 point Helvetica).

area composition - the arranging of items of text and pictures on a page.

arabic numerals/arabic figures - The normal number figures which we use 0, 1, 2, 3 etc. The name is given because they were derived from Arabic symbols.

artboard - a coated stock of smooth finish card used for high quality printing, especially if photographs are used.

art paper - coated paper with a smooth finish.

artwork - original copy or electronic files created by designer, ready for outputting to film or plate.

ascender - vertical stroke extending above the x-height of a character in letters like d and h.

ASCII - the American Standard Code for Information Interchange. And eight bit digital code format for 128 characters, numbers and controls. Seven bits are used for character assignment and one bit is used for parity checking (an error checking mechanism).

ASPIC - Authors’ Symbolic Pre-press Interfacing Codes. A coding scheme endorsed by the BPIF for marking up files of copy which allows photosetting directly from the keyboard entered data. Used as an alternative to SGML (Standard Generalised Markup Language).

assembly - (1) the placing together of films of pages into their correct imposed positions in advance of platemaking; (2) the putting together of a package, box or non-standard folder.

author’s corrections - corrections and alterations marked on a proof by the author not including correction of errors made by the printer or typesetter. Author’s corrections are usually chargeable by the print company whereas printer’s errors are usually not.

autopositive film - film which produces a positive image from a positive original.

autoreversal film - film used for making contact duplicates. Positives produce positives, negatives produce negatives.

auxiliary storage - external media such as CD-Rs, tapes and magnetic discs for archiving and storage of large volumes of files.

a/w - abbreviation for artwork.

Go to top of page

B

b - abbreviation meaning bold.

bf - abbreviation meaning bold (boldface).

B series - an ISO standard of paper sizes for charts, posters and displays.

back - the outside edge of the binding of a book.

backing - binding term for forming a shoulder at either edge of the spine.

back margin - the inside margin between printed text and binding.

backlist - a list of books held by a publisher that continue to sell after their initial publication. Often publishers like to sustain revenue through a set of popular backlist titles to offset the risk on new ventures.

bad break - ugly or unfortunate hyphenation of a word across two lines (eg fat-her for father).

band strapping - sealing thin, tough plastic strips around a stack of printed items to keep them secure in transit.

bank - type of lightweight writing and printing paper.

banner - large headline.

bar - horizontal line which forms part of a text character (eg letter T).

baryta - type of heavy coated paper.

base alignment - aligning characters of different sizes on the same baseline.

baseline - imaginary line that type characters sit on. The lower case letters x and r rest exactly on the baseline, while curved letters like c and e dip slightly below it.

base paper - paper which has not yet been coated.

basic size - size of sheet used to define the basis weight in the US.

basis weight - the weight of a paper or substrate in gsm (grams per square metre); US printers use a measure of pounds per ream cut to basic size.

bastard progressives - a set of progressive proofs which shows every combination of process colours (CMYK). This is to allow the platemaker to make colour corrections. In the US these are sometimes called Hollywood progressives.

bastard size - a non-standard size of material used in design or print.

bastard title - the title of a publication on a page all by itself with no additional text.

bed - flat area of a printing machine on which a type form (forme) is secured when printing is done.

bible paper - thin, strong paper with a high opacity originally used for reference books, Bibles and prayer books.

bimetal plate - plate for long run lithographic printing, made of two levels, each of a different alloy or metal.

binding - the process of sticking sheets of a publication together at one edge with or without a cover.

bit - binary digit (ie 1 or 0 corresponding to a state of on or off). Computers store information in bits.

bitmap - a type of image made up of a rectangular matrix of cells which are either coloured in or not coloured in (ie the individual cells are either on or off). Also called a raster image or rasterised image.

blad - promotional booklet containing sample pages of a book.

blade coated - paper which has coating applied and then levelled with a long steel blade.

blanket - a rubber surfaced sheet which fits around the cylinder and transfers the image from plate to paper on an offset litho printing press.

blanket-to-blanket - printing done on both sides of a sheet simultaneously using two blanket cylinders which act as impression cylinders for each other.

bleaching - process to whiten paper by applying chemicals to pulp.

bleed - inking that extends over the edge of the paper leaving no margin at the edge.

blind blocking/blind stamping - using a metal block to emboss, smooth down or create a textured pattern on a cover .

block - (1) rectangle of text; (2) a metal plate used to emboss a cover with a design, text or pattern, sometimes a metal foil is put into the impressed area to give a shinier metallic finish than is possible with Pantone metallic inks.

blocking - the action of using a block.

blow up - enlargement.

blues/blueprints - blue contact photoprints used as preliminary proofs, for assembling negative films or preparing layouts. These are sometimes called ozalids, diazo prints, bluelines and dyelines.

blurb - marketing copy on a book cover or jacket which gives some idea of what the book is about. The blurb tries to sell the book to the buyer who has picked up a copy from the shelf by making the book sound appealing or interesting.

board - heavy stock of card used for packaging or covers.

body/body copy/body text/body matter - the text used for the actual main article rather than headlines of subheads.

body height/body size - total height of a specific font of a typeface.

bold - typeface weight which is heavier than regular (roman).

bond - mediumweight paper (usually between 70gsm to 110gsm) used for letter writing, letterheads and compliment slips. Sometimes office paper (copier paper) is colloquially called bond.

book proof - proofs bound into the form of the finished book.

bourgeois (bour) - printer’s name for 9 point type.

box - rules (straight lines) that frame a piece of type or an image.

BPIF - British Printing Industries Federation.

braces - the characters { }.

brasses - dies made from metal which are used for stamping (blocking) a design or text on a hard cover.

brevier (brev) - printer’s name for 8 point type.

brightness - measure of paper’s reflectance of an ISO standard light source.

broadsheet - name given to the ‘quality’ newspapers which are roughly A2 final size.

broadside - a full size sheet of paper which can be folded to make a signature (section of pages). Folded down the middle a broadside forms a folio of four pages, folded once more it forms a quarto of eight pages, folded again it forms an octavo of sixteen pages.

bromide - light sensitive paper used to produce photographs or high quality line art on an image setter. Often used to produce high quality single-colour logos for distribution to outside organisations for reproduction purposes.

buckle folder - folding machine which employs a metal plate the bend the sheet around it.

bulk - the thickness of paper.

bullet - a special character or graphic symbol used at the beginning of each of a set of lines of text in order show membership of a list of items.

bundling - pressing sections together prior to binding to expel air.

burst binding - type of adhesive binding where sections are punched (burst) along the inside edges to provide greater adhesion between the pages themselves and the spine. The process does not include sewing.

byte - a group of eight bits (binary digits). A byte of information holds one digital character. It is used as a measure of digital storage capacity.

Go to top of page

C

c&lc - caps and lowercase.

c&sc - caps and small caps.

calender - set of rollers on a paper machine which apply pressure to the paper as it passes through to give it a smooth, lightly glossed finish.

caliper - the thickness in microns of a paper, card, board or substrate.

CAM - composition and markup ie setting copy in type and marking up how it should be displayed.

camera-ready - final artwork which can be set onto film or printing plate by being photographed.

Cameron belt press - a web-fed press than can be linked to a binding line to print, gather and bind paperback books in one go.

cancel page - a new page put in a book replacing a page with an error, used instead of issuing a list of errata.

cap height - the height of capital letters (from baseline to the top of a capital letter X).

cap line - a line that would pass touch the top edge of the capital letters of specific size of font if they were placed side by side.

caps - capital letters.

caret - an insertion mark ^.

cartridge - (1) plastic consumable which holds the ink for an inkjet printer; (2) high opacity paper used for book printing and drawing.

case - (1) tray containing blocks of movable type characters; (2) stiff board cover usually coated in leather, cloth or textured paper.

casebinding - binding of book with a hard cover.

casting off - see copy fitting.

caption - text used to describe a photograph or illustration.

centre - to position a word, set of words or paragraph centrally within given boundaries.

character - a single entity in a complete set of type. Characters include A to Z, a to z, 0 to 9 and punctuation marks. Some typefaces such as Zapf Dingbats and Wingdings are made up of special symbol characters.

character compensation - see tracking.

character count - the number of characters in a block of type.

character fit - the space between individual characters.

character recognition - recognition of printed characters by a scanner. See also OCR.

character set - the full set of characters including letters, numbers, punctuation marks and special characters.

chemacs - chemically produced stamping blocks for relief stamping of designs and text on hard covers.

chemical pulp - wood pulp which has had unwanted elements removed by chemical rather than mechanical means.

chemithermomechanical pulp (CTMP) - the highest grade of mechanical pulp.

china clay - white clay used as the coating on coated paper stock.

cicero - the European measure of type equal to 12 Didot points. (UK has different point size and measures to other European countries, but the same type size and measurements as the US).

CIELab - a colour measurement scale system.

CLA - Copyright Licensing Agency.

clip art - libraries of categorised pictures for general use (eg globes, maps, telephones, street signs, cartoon animals), sometimes copyright free, that can be incorporated into artwork.

close-up - marginal instruction sometimes used by proof readers to reduce space between lines, letters, words or paragraphs.

coated cartridge - coated paper with a dull finish used for printing books containing colour pictures.

coated stock - paper or card coated with china clay to provide a smooth finish. Often used for publications containing photographic images.

co-edition - production of a book in different editions but sharing common elements. Often done to reduce printing costs through co-publishing with an overseas partner. Often done to produce foreign language versions of the same books or to appeal to the cultural differences of different target markets.

cold colours - blues and purples. Colours that seem to recede into the background. Reds, yellows and oranges are called warm colours and seem to come to the fore.

cold set - a type of web printing in which ink dries by soaking into absorbent paper without the use of heat to aid the process.

collating - the placement of pages and and sections of pages in the correct order.

collating marks - black marks placed on the back folds of sections to check that they have been collated in the right order.

colophon - the printer or publisher’s identifying mark, sometimes found on the spine or title page of a publication. From the ancient Greek word meaning a finishing, a sign off or an end.

colour bars - small strips containing blocks of colour which run along the edges of a full colour proof. These are used for checking evenness of ink density across a sheet and trapping.

colour matching system - method of specifying the precise colours of the finished document by looking at swatch booklet of pre-mixed ink colours. Examples include Pantone system, Trumatch system and Toyo.

colour separations - prints or films which are produced of the separate process colours which make up a full colour page (ie separate outputs of the cyan part of the image, the magenta part of the image, the yellow part of the image and the black part of the image). Each of the four film separations is used to make one of the four printing plates which will be used to ink the paper.

combination folder - a folding machine which uses both a metal plate to bend the paper and a metal knife to run a fold.

comp - (1) abbreviation of ‘compositor’ - metal type setter’s job title; (2) design term for a comprehensive layout.

composition - setting type and arranging it within a page (particularly metal type).

composition sizes - units of type below 14pt in size. (Large sizes are called display sizes).

condensed - a type style where the width of the characters is narrower than the regular (roman) face.

conditioning - exposure of paper stock and substrates to their environment for a period of time so that unwanted expansion or contraction does not take place after a publication is printed and finished. Conditioning also allows stabilisation of moisture content in the paper before printing.

constants - page elements that remain the same over a number of pages or between editions.

contact print - a photographic print made via contact with a negative or positive.

contact screen - a glass screen used to make halftone (greyscale) images via direct content with a photographic film.

continuous stationery - stationery which comes on a reel.

continuous tone - images which have gradients of colour or greys such as photographs with skin tones or horizons.

control codes - data or tagged characters in a file which control the formatting of a document or the general actions of a computer.

convertible press - a printing press that prints on both sides of the paper in one pass.

coordinates - the spatial positioning of a point in space relative to axes at 90 degrees to each other.

copy - the written text to be typeset.

copy fitting - estimating the space required to fit a specific number of words of a particular size of a font of type, or conversely estimating the number of words that will fit into a particular space.

copy preparation/prep - marking instructions on a manuscript for a typesetter.

copyright - right to control reproduction of an intellectual or creative work.

copyright page - the page of a book which contains the legal and administrative information about a publication such as: the ISBN number; statement of copyright; printing dates of different editions of the book; the publisher or printer’s imprint; the names, addresses and contact details of the printers, publishers and other contributors to the book; British Library cataloguing information. Usually on the reverse of the title page. Sometimes called the imprint page or biblio page (because it normally has bibliographic information and the imprint of the publisher).

corrupt - the word used to describe a disk or file which has malfunctioned or has incorrect data and is no longer of any use.

CRC - Abbreviation for camera ready copy.

Cromalin - A high quality plastic-laminate proof system by DuPont which allows you to see high-fidelity proofs before printing plates are made.

crop - to trim parts off an image to add focus to the important elements.

cross grain - paper grain at 90 degrees to the spine of the book (parallel grain is preferable because cross grain can cause splitting problems when paper expands).

cross-hatching - (1) a fill design using lines at 90 degrees to each other to form small rectangles or squares; (2) an unwanted printing effect that looks like a cross-hatched fill design because inks have been printed at the wrong screen angle or because a printed item has been re-scanned instead of using the original artwork (see moire).

cross head - a sub-heading centred across a measure of text.

CTMP - abbreviation for chemithermomechanical pulp.

cursive - typefaces that look like handwriting (Lat. currere - to run).

cut and paste - remove a page element from one location and place in another. Items used to be physically cut out from a page with a scalpel and pasted in with glue before the advent of desktop publishing.

cut-off - web printing term for the length of a sheet cut. This is determined by the circumference of the plate cylinder.

cyrillic - Russian letters.

Go to top of page

D

D - abbreviation for Didot.

damper - roller on a litho which moisturises (applies damping solution to) a plate prior to inking.

dash - a horizontal line of a given length.

data - a general term for digital information (from the Latin, meaning things which have been given).

dead matter - elements no longer required.

default - program or system set up before any user changes or preferences have been applied to its standard process of operation.

density - measurement of the tone (shade) of a printed or photographic area.

depth scale - a device for measuring type and leading.

descender - the part of a type character which drops below the baseline in letter such as y and g.

Didot - Didot or Didot point is the basic measure of European type as opposed to the Anglo-American point which is smaller in size.

die stamping - using a steel die to create an impression on paper.

digitiser tablet - see graphics tablet.

dingbats - special symbolic and ornamental characters.

direct litho - lithographic printing press which uses the printing plate to press the inked image on the paper rather than offsetting it to a rubber blanket first.

display type/display face - large type used for posters and displays.

display sizes - type sizes larger than 14 point.

double-page spread - a layout consisting of two facing pages.

double truck - the layout of a double-page spread (ie a layout spread across two pages).

dot - spots of ink which make up a halftone image.

dot gain - the spread of ink dots when they soak into paper. Papers with a low dot gain produce sharper outlines and images.

dot matrix - an old style of printer popular in the 1970s and early 80s which used matrices of ink dots to make up each character printed.

dots per inch - a measure of the resolution of a printed image. The greater the number of dots per inch, the higher the quality of the image.

dpi - abbreviation for dots per inch (measure of resolution).

draft - (1) unfinished version of a piece of text or artwork; (2) low quality but high output speed printing option for an office printer; (3) a technical or architectural drawing.

drilling - drilling holes into sheets of paper so that they can be ring bound (often done for four-ring clip binders).

drop cap - an large ornamental capital letter that extends down over more than one line of text. Usually used as the first letter of the first paragraph of the main body text.

dry transfer - lettering/characters on a transparent or semi-transparent sheet that are transferred onto paper by rubbing over a particular character on the sheet.

dummy - a paper mock up of the finished publication, sometimes bound to look like the finished item.

dynamic balance - balance around the centre of a layout which is not symmetrical but which provides equal visual weighting of elements either side of the centre by virtue of size, colour, motion shape and distance.

Go to top of page

E

edit - to alter, correct and make suitable for purpose a piece of text.

edition - edition each new printing of a book where the content has been edited and altered.

edition binding - a form of hardcover book binding (case binding).

em - variable type measure equal to the body size of the type being used (if size unspecified, length of 12 points is assumed).

em dash - a horizontal stroke the width of one em.

em quad - a blank space of type equal to the cap height of a specific size of font and roughly equal to the width of the letter M.

embed - to insert graphics or text into a single file rather than ask the file to reference them externally.

emulsion - photosensitive coating on a film or plate. Films are supplied either emulsion side up or emulsion side down.

en - type width measure half the width of an em.

en dash - a horizontal stroke the width of one en.

endpaper - strong paper which secures a hardback book’s inside pages to its cover.

en space - a spacing element the width of one en.

erratum slip/errata - piece of paper inserted into a finished book which details the mistakes noticed after the book was printed. The errata are strictly speaking the errors printed on the erratum slip.

expanded - a style of type in which the letters are wider than the normal face.

extended - see expanded.

extent - the number of pages in a publication.

extra bold - style of type with thicker strokes than the bold face version.

Go to top of page

F

f&g sheets - the folded and gathered sheets of a book.

face - short for typeface.

family - a group of font variations of a particular typeface.

feeder - the mechanism on a printing press, coating machine, laminating machine or folding machine which lifts and places individual sheets from the stack.

fill - to fill the bounding lines of a shape drawn using a graphics package.

filler - an element or story used to fill space on a page to meet the publishing deadline.

filmsetting - creating films using a photosetting system/imagesetter. Often this process takes place before printing plates are produced from the films using a platemaking machine.

filter - coloured sheet placed over a lens to remove specific colours from reaching a photosensitive film. Filters are used to create colour separations for process (full colour) printing.

finish - the feel and look of a paper or substrate’s surface.

finishing - processes done to a publication after the printing of the sheets is done (folding, trimming, collating, varnishing, laminating, binding etc).

flag - stylised name.

flap - part of a book’s dust jacket that is folded inside the cover. Some softback books have flaps made by creasing and folding part of an oversize cover in on itself so that the exposed part of the cover fits flush with the text pages of the book.

flat - a spliced-together set of films, mounted on a sheet in readiness for plate making.

flat back - binding a book with a flat rather than a curved back.

flatbed - (1) a type of scanner which uses a glass platen to hold the original in the same way as a photocopier; (2) a type of printing press that uses a flat area rather than cylinders for printing.

flat planning - the process of planning diagrammatically what content appears where on a multi page document. Flat planning allows multi page publications’ artwork to be sent to a print shop a section at a time.

flier - see flyer.

float - the visual positioning of an element within the space on a page.

floating accent - an accent positioned above or below a character after the character has been set.

flush - when overlays or elements are in complete registration or alignment (eg flush left, flush right or flush left and right).

flush cover - a cover that is trimmed flush to the edges of text pages within rather than having a slight overhang.

flush left - lines of type that line up along the left margin.

flush right - lines of type that line up along the right margin.

flyer - a small unfolded leaflet for passing out by hand.

flying paster - a web press attachment that joins the finishing reel of paper to next one while the press is still in operation.

foil blocking - stamping shiny metallic elements onto certificates or books. The process is far more expensive than using Pantone metallic inks but produces a truer and often shinier metallic look.

folding - the bending of a sheet of paper back on itself till flat.

folio - (1) page number at the top or bottom of a page; (2) a sheet of paper folded once into four pages; (3) a sheet of text.

font - a complete set of characters of a typeface in a specific weight and aspect.

foot - bottom of the page.

footer - repeated items at the bottom of a series of pages.

footline - line across the bottom of a page.

foot margin - margin at the bottom of a page.

fore edge - the outer edge of a book opposite the bound edge.

foreword - introduction to or endorsement of a book written by someone other than the author.

form - a set of locked up, ready to print metal type and filler elements.

formation - distribution of fibres in a sheet of paper ranging from ‘wild’ to ‘even’.

forme - see form.

format - (1) the size and style of publication (eg A4 six panel roll-fold leaflet, A4 perfect bound booklet); (2) making a disk suitable for use with a particular operating system; (3) file type, often signified by a three letter extension such as ‘.tif’ at the end of a filename.

forwarding - the stages in hardback book binding between sewing and casing in (adding the hard cover).

fount - see font.

free page - a page that breaks the design specified for the majority of the publication.

frontmatter - the pages of a book before the main subject text. Also called prelims.

Go to top of page

G

galley - a long shallow metal tray into which full lines of type are set once they have been set in a composing stick. Often the name given to a long set of lines of type placed in the galley ready for making up into pages.

galley proof - a type checking proof (sometimes termed a rough proof) on a long, narrow sheet of paper. A galley proof is does not feature type fully assembled and cut into specific pages, it is just a means to check the metal typesetting.

gatefold - two folds are applied to a sheet such that the fold lines are parallel and the flaps of the sheet overlap or meet.

gathering - collecting signatures (sections) or sheets of a publication in the right order ready to be trimmed and/or bound.

ghosting - inking problem whereby and image comes out too faint because not enough ink was applied.

ghost writer - someone who writes on another person’s behalf. Sometimes used for autobiographies by people who aren’t writers by trade.

gloss art - a type of shiny art paper normally used for posters, brochures, leaflets and flyers.

goldenrod - orange paper on which printer’s films are assembled.

golden mean - see golden ratio.

golden section - sectioning of a page or visual area according to the golden ratio.

golden ratio - the ratio of lengths roughly 13:8, often found in nature, which produces aesthetically pleasing compositions.

gothic - (1) style of type sometimes called blackletter, based on medieval script (eg Old English); (2) style of sans serif type.

glossary - alphabetic list of special or unusual terms.

grain - the run of the fibres in a sheet of paper or card.

grammage - term for weight of paper in gsm (grams per square metre).

graphic - terms usually applied to pictures which are not photographs.

graphics tablet - a flat rectangular input panel which is drawn on with a digital pen, stylus or puck to produce images on screen. Some graphics tablets are pressure sensitive to mimic the action of drawing softly or heavily with a pencil.

greeking - the use of grey blocks to mimic text and speed up rendering of areas of small type size on screen. Greeking was originally done for the purpose of mimicking text to give the impression of how the finished document would look in a draft piece of artwork and ancient Greek text was used for the purpose.

greyscale - images described as greyscale incorporate different shades of grey in up to 256 shades from white to black. ‘Black and white’ photos are scanned in as greyscale images on a scanner.

grid - a set of horizontal and vertical lines with regular spacing to aid positioning of elements when designing.

gripper - mechanism on a printing press which grips the sheet of paper.

grotesque - a style of sans serif type.

gsm - weight measure of paper or card (grams per square metre).

guide - a horizontal or vertical line which can be positioned where the designer likes so that they can align elements to it for aesthetic reasons. Many graphics and DTP programs have a function of ‘snap to guides’ or ‘align to guides’ which magnetically pulls any elements close to the guide into alignment with it.

guillotine - cutting machine which trims or cuts sheets of paper, card or board.

gutter - area between columns of text.

Go to top of page

H

H&Js - Hyphens and Justification - the process of making rules for placement of hyphens in words at the end of a line when lines of text in a column are made equal in length.

half-title - sometimes called bastard title, a page which contains the title of a book but no extra information.

halftone - using variations of ink dot size to produce shades of different colour (or grey) density. Sometimes used to refer to photographic images.

hanging figures - numerals which are designed to extend below the baseline.

hanging indent - where the first line of a paragraph is not indented but the subsequent lines below it are. (Sometimes called an outdent).

hanging punctuation - punctuation marks appearing at the end of a line which are placed slightly to the right of their natural position to make the right hand edge of a paragraph or column of words appear straight.

hard disk - high capacity, online magnetic data storage device, often internally mounted in a computer’s casing.

head - (1) abbreviation of headline; (2) top of a page.

headband - ornamental cord attached to the top of a book’s spine.

header - elements that appear at the top of a set of pages of a document.

hickey - spot or scratch on a printed sheet.

highlights - the lightest areas of a photographic image.

hollow - the space between the case of a hardback (casebound) book and the sewn together pages.

hopper - part of a machine where sections are stacked and dropped onto a conveyor belt.

hot metal - metal type made from individual character blocks.

house style - the use of language, spelling and basic layout used in publications specific to a certain organisation or company

Go to top of page

I

imaging area - the readable part of flat bed scanner. Also the printable dimensions on a sheet of paper when used with a specific printer.

imposition - the placement of multiple pages for a printer’s flat sheet such that when it is printed and folded into a signature (uncut section) all the pages fall into the right order for that section, ready to have the edges trimmed off.

impression - (1) the printing or re-printing of a book with no alterations to the content; (2) the action of a plate or blanket pressing on the paper to apply ink.

imprint - the publishers name printed on a book. Often used to mean a publishing company owned by a larger publishing group.

imprint page - often synonymous with the copyright page. The imprint page features the name, address and contact details of the publisher as well as the other administrative and legal details (see copyright page).

indent - extra space from the margin at the beginning of a line or paragraph.

inferior - set of small version of characters which are placed below the baseline adjacent to a regular sized character.

initial - the first letter in a body of text which is set larger than than the cap height for ornamental purposes.

inkjet printer - a printer which uses nozzles to spray fine jets of ink onto the page. Inkjet printers are often used to produce proofs and large format prints.

in print - a term meaning books which are currently in stock at the publisher and readily available.

input device - device used to enter data into a computer such as mice, keyboards, graphics tablets etc.

insert mode - allows text to be inserted on screen at the cursor point by moving the existing text along (whereas overtype mode overwrites the existing text replacing it with the text you type).

intaglio - printing using recessed figures etched below the surface of the printing area (eg gravure).

inter-line spacing - the space between lines of type (ie another word for leading).

ISBN - International Standard Book Number. A ten digit number which acts as a book’s unique identifier based on an international system. Often found above a book’s bar code and on the imprint (copyright) page, the first digit codes the country of origin, the next four digits code the publishing house, the next four the title and the last digit is a checking reference.

iph - impressions per hour (printing speed).

ISO - International Organization for Standardization. Creates international standards such as the A and B series of paper sizes.

italic - type style which is slanted at an angle to the vertical.

Go to top of page

J

jacket - abbreviation for dust jacket. A protective paper covering for a hardbacked book.

jog - shake piles of pages into alignment.

justify - to align text to one or both margins.

Go to top of page

K

kern - the part of a character that extends beyond the body of its type block.

kerning - increasing or decreasing the space between individual adjacent characters.

keyline - a thin bounding line around an element or image on a piece of artwork.

knife folder - a folding machine which folds paper by placing a metal knife into the paper as it goes inbetween two rollers.

knocking up - lining up the edges of a stack of paper by knocking against and solid plane.

Go to top of page

L

lamination - the application of a polypropylene coating to a printed sheet to add a luxurious feel and protect the sheet. Usually done on outside covers of books or brochures.

landscape - orientation of paper where the longest sides run horizontally.

lap - the amount of overlap of one folded section on another.

laserjet - type of printer which uses the same technology as a photocopier, namely a drum, laserbeam to charge parts of a drum, and toner powder which adheres to portions of the drum and sticks to the paper run across the drum.

laserprint - printout from a laserjet printer.

lay - the sheet positioning guide on a printing machine.

lay down - to perform imposition.

layout - the arrangement of elements on a page or spread.

lc - abbreviation for lower case.

leader - (1) the most important story on a page; (2) a line of dots or dashes which leads the eye from one area of the page to another, for example in a contents page.

leading - space between lines of type. This gets its name from the lead strips of type that used to be inserted to space out lines of metal type.

leaf - single sheet of two pages.

letter fit - the spacing between particular characters in a font.

letterset - a type of printing where a plate with characters etched in relief places the ink on a rubber blanket which transfers the inked image to the paper.

letter spacing - the space between letters in a word.

ligature - a combination of two or more Characters joined on single type block or used as a single unit.

lightface - a style of type featuring thinner strokes than a regular typeface.

light primaries - the colours red, green and blue (also called additive primaries).

lightweight paper - paper less than 60gsm in weight.

limp binding - see limp sewn binding and limp unsewn binding.

limp sewn binding - the process of sewing sections together before cover is drawn onto the text pages.

limp unsewn binding - paperback binding. The term is used interchangeably with perfect binding.

line art - images containing only black and white (or solid colour and white) with no shades or variations of tone.

line spacing - the space from one base line of type to the next in a paragraph.

lining figures - numerals which align at their base and are of equal height.

list - the list of books which a publishing house produces.

literal - a typing or typesetting mistake. Also called a typo.

litho/lithography - a printing process in which parts of the printing plate are chemically treated to let ink adhere and non-image areas are chemically treated to accept only water. This is a planographic process (ie the image area and the non-image area of the printing plate are on the same surface plane rather than one of the areas being raised or in relief).

live area - area of a page where printing will extend to.

logo - short for logotype. The representative graphic (or type device) which symbolises and signifies a particular company or organisation.

long grain - paper which has the grain running parallel to the longest side.

long primer (lp) - printer’s name for 10 point type.

lower case (lc) - non-capital (small) letters, so called because the non-capital letter blocks of movable type used to be kept in an actual case positioned below the case which held the boxes of individual capital letter blocks.

Go to top of page

M

machine coated - paper coated by a machine to give it a smoother finish.

machine finished (MF) - a smooth type of paper which has been calendered (sent through a stack of cast iron smoothing rollers).

machining - machine printing.

macro - a set of commands set to activated by a single keystroke.

magnetic ink character recognition - a process which allows characters formed in magnetic ink to be read by computer using an input device.

making order - an order placed to make up specialist paper which is not normally held in stock.

markup - (1) written instructions on a proof informing the reader how format or change the artwork or text; (2) control codes often inside < > tags informing a computer how to format and structure textual and graphical content.

mask - an overlay sheet with solid portions and gaps which allows effects, treatments or inks to be applied only to certain portions of an image.

master/master page - a page which acts as a template containing elements which will be repeated across multiple pages.

Matchprint - a high fidelity colour proofing system by 3M which produces plastic laminated proofs. Often used as an alternative to a Cromalin.

measure - the horizontal length of a line or column of type.

mechanical paper - paper made from mechanical pulp.

mechanical pulp - pulp (the mush that is turned into paper) produced from ground up materials rather than by chemical treatment.

metallics/metallic inks - inks which give a metallic effect, often containing ground up metal powder. Metallics often require a primer to be applied and need careful setting of trapping.

midtones - the middle shades of a colour photographic image or greyscale image, as opposed to the highlights and shadows.

mini-web - a small web offset printing machine.

minion (min) - printer’s name for 7 point type.

misprint - error in typesetting.

misregister - to print colours which are overlaid out of alignment.

mock up - a rough model of the final document.

modern - post-19th century typestyles.

moiré - unwanted cross-hatching pattern on print, especially photographic images, caused by printing colours at incorrect screen angles or by scanning an image from a previously printed material rather than an original.

monitor - computer screen.

monopitch - typefaces that have characters which each take up the same amount of space, as opposed to those which have spacing proportional to the width of each letter (eg Courier).

monospaced - see monopitch.

MTA - Minimum terms agreement.

mutt/mutton - typesetter’s term for an em.

Go to top of page

N

narrow web - see mini-web.

negative assembly - assembling negative films together in preparation for producing printing plates.

Net Book Agreement - An anti-competitive trade agreement which meant all copies of a book had to be sold at the same price without discount. The price was set by the publisher. This was discontinued in 1995.

newsprint - (1) type of light paper made from mechanical pulp and used in newspapers. (2) the actual print on a newspaper, normally printed at much lower line screens and resolutions than on magazines.

non-lining figures - numerals which extend beyond the baseline (sometimes called old-style figures).

nonpareil (nonp) - printer’s name for 6 point type.

non-proportional type - see monopitch.

notch binding - type of binding in which notches are punched into the spine end of folded sections and glue is placed in the notches to hold the sheets together.

nut - typesetter’s word for an en.

Go to top of page

O

OCR - Optical Character Recognition. The scanning of words from a sheet of paper using a scanner and conversion to editable text.

octavo - a booksize measurement specified by the cutting of a standard booksheet size into eight pages (eg crown octavo). Abbreviated as 8vo.

oddment - a signature (sheet folded into a section of pages) with fewer pages that the other signatures which has to be printed separately.

offprint - a piece of a book printed separately from the complete work.

offset lithography - a printing system where a master roller is inked, the ink is transferred onto an offset roller (ie one offset from the master) and then rolled onto a blank sheet of paper.

old-style figures - see non-lining figures.

on - size of space from one line to the next (eg 12pt Times on 14pt).

opacity - lack of transparency in paper or substrate. The greater the opacity the less the letters will show through on the opposite side of a sheet of paper printed on both sides.

opaque/opaquing - using opaquing paint to stop certain areas of a film from being transparent or semi-transparent. This might be done if you wished to blank out certain words or images on a film, prior to exposing it for plate-making purposes.

optical centre - the point about which page elements visually appear to be centred vertically. This is higher than the actual measured centre.

optical brightener - light emitting dye used to brighten paper.

original - the first representation of the finished work (whether photos, transparencies images, publications or text).

origination - the reproduction processes that occur after original artwork is supplied to the repro house or print shop up until printing plates are made.

orphan - the first line of a paragraph when it appear on its own at the bottom a page.

output device - a computer peripheral which displays data in readable form, for example printers, monitors, imagesetters.

outturn sheet - sample sheet of paper used for checking quality and specification of batch of produced paper.

overlay - transparent sheet (often of acetate) covering artwork on which instructions are marked.

overmatter - text not used in the final printed product.

overtype mode - when typing characters overwrites the existing ones on screen (unlike insert mode which just moves existing characters along).

ozalid - type of proof used for checking a film output (see blueprint).

Go to top of page

P

PA - the Publishers’ Association. A large trade organisation of publishing houses.

page - one side of a sheet of paper.

page description language - computer language which tells output devices such as electronic printers and imagesetters how a page is composed in terms of fonts, sizes, image maps etc. Examples include Adobe Postscript and Hewlett Packard’s PCL.

pagination - page numbering or number of pages.

panchromatic - sensitive to or capable of producing all colours.

Pantone - a popular colour matching system which allows the designer to specify the exact ink colours that they want a publication to be printed in. This is usually done by looking at a swatch of pre-printed Pantone colours.

part-mechanical paper - paper containing 50 percent or more of chemical pulp with the rest made up from mechanical pulp.

paste-up - a piece of artwork where elements of a page are cut with a scalpel and physically pasted into position to make a mock-up of the final item.

pearl - printer’s name for 5 point type.

pel - abbreviation for picture element (another word for pixel).

perfect binding - a type of binding where the inside edges of the sheets are roughened and glued to the cover spine, often by a heating process. Usually used to bind paperback books.

perfecting - printing on both sides of the paper at once using a printing press called a perfector.

permanent paper - acid-free paper used for archived documents that need longevity and strength. This paper is made according to the US standard ANSI Z39 1984.

photomechanical transfer (PMT) - range of papers by Eastman Kodak which: allow enlarged or reduced images to be produced in a process camera (PMT negative paper); allow contact proofs of line art and halftone negatives to be made from negatives in a contact frame (PMT reflex paper); allow positive prints to be made by diffusion transfer (PMT receiver paper). In the print industry PMTs are generally thought of as paper negatives which produce positive prints through chemical transfer (ie using PMT reflex paper).

pica - measure of 12 points, roughly equal to a sixth of an inch.

pi characters - special characters (eg mathematical symbols) not part of the font but used for technical or special purposes.

picture element - see pixel.

pin register - system of holes and pins that allow the registration (overlaying in alignment) of copy films and plates.

pitch - horizontal character spacing.

pixel - picture element or picture cell on a monitor screen made up of one set of red, green and blue dots.

planning - the process of imposing and readying films for the platemaking process.

planographic printing - printing process in which the printable and non-printable areas are on the same flat surface, rather than having one or other area raised or in relief. Lithographic printing is a form of planographic printing.

plant list - list of equipment which a printer has on-site at their print factory.

plant costs - term for a publication’s print production costs incurred before it is printed.

plastic proof - glossy laminated or plastic colour proof such as Cromalin or Matchprint which is produced for checking before printing plates have been made.

plate - metal or plastic sheets which is loaded with ink and pressed onto paper to produce the image on the final page of a printed publication.

plotter - a large format printing device often used in architectural printouts which can plot vectors and coordinates. Some plotters use pens rather than ink jets.

PLR - Public lending right.

PLS - Publishers’ Licensing Society.

PMS - abbreviation for Pantone Matching System. (See Pantone).

point - measure of type roughly 1/72 of an inch in size. 12 points equal a pica.

portrait - orientation of a piece of paper which has the longest edges standing vertically.

positive - a film or transparency in the same colours as the final output.

postscript - (1) a paragraph added to a letter after it is signed indicated by the abbreviation ps; (2) something added to a book as a supplement.

PostScript - Adobe’s page description language which is universally used throughout the printing industry.

PostScript fonts - Fonts often come in PostScript or Truetype varieties. PostScript fonts require Adobe Type Manager software for installation and management, whereas Truetype fonts can just be dropped into an operating system’s fonts folder. Printout problems can occur if both a Postscript version of a particular font and a Truetype version of a particular fonts are both installed on the same system.

prelims - the pages at the front of a book prior to the start of the actual subject matter.

primary colours - primary additive colours (on-screen colours) are red green and blue. Primary subtractive colours are cyan, magenta and yellow, which are used in combination with black for producing full colour prints.

printer’s error (PE) - an error in production or typesetting by the print company that needs to be amended, as opposed to an author’s correction.

printing down - placing a film over a light sensitive plate or paper to produce an image.

print run - the number of copies of a publication printed in one go.

print to paper - instruction to print copies until all the available paper for the job runs out, rather than specifying a set number of copies.

progressives/progressive proofs (progs) - colour checking proofs which show each the colour printed by each plate in isolation and also show the print image as each successive colour is added.

proof/proof copy - an initial version of a piece of text or publication which needs checking, amendment and refining before a final version can be printed.

proof reading - checking proof copies and marking up errors and amendments.

proportional - typefaces that are designed with character spacing proportional to the size of the individual letter (each character does not take up the same space). This is to create a more aesthetic balance of space between letters in words.

publication - a finished printed work ready for sale or distribution.

puck - a specialist input device which is often used in conjunction with a sensitised flat tablet for engineering or draughting design work.

pull quotes - important quotation extracted from the main article or story and set in large letters to distinguish it from the main block of type, sometimes set across columns. Pull quotes are often used to draw attention to a particular issue or to fill space if the written text runs short.

punch register system - a system of punching holes in copy, films or plates for positioning/registration.

Go to top of page

Q

quad - (1) a blank piece of metal type for filling the spaces in a line of type; (2) a sheet of paper which is four times the size of a broadside sheet.

quarto - a booksize measurement specified by the cutting of a standard booksheet size into four pages (eg demy quarto). Abbreviated as 4to.

Go to top of page

R

ragged - lines of type which are only aligned at one end, left or right, or not aligned at either end.

ranged - flush, aligned to a guide or margin (eg text is ranged left if the left hand side of the lines of text all line up along the left hand margin).

raster image - an image made by the colouring or turning off and on off cells in a matrix (see bitmap image).

raster image processor (RIP) - device between a page layout computer and and imagesetter which converts everything in the electronic artwork into one series of raster image data describing the entire page as a raster image at a specific linescreen and resolution. For example a Quark XPress file would be printed to the image setter via the RIP to produce the film separations for platemaking.

ream - 500 sheets of paper.

recto - right-hand page (Latin for right).

register - to overlay colour separations in alignment to produce a composite image.

registration colour - a colour pre-specified in a page layout or graphics program which shows up on all colour separations of a piece of artwork so that the registration marks in this colour can be lined up against each other on overlaid films . (See registration marks).

registration marks - cross hair images towards the edges of colour separated films which can be lined up over each other to make sure that each film is in perfect alignment with the one beneath. This is usually done over a light table or light box.

remainder/remaindering - the low-price selling off in bulk of books which do not sell or have stopped selling at full price. Publishing houses gain back storage space and the remaindered stock is often sold on in bargain bookstores. Authors receive little or no royalties from the remaindering process.

repro/reprographics - pre-press readying of work for printing. Professional scanning, camera capture, proof production, and production of film for printing purposes etc.

repro house - a company, often owned by a print company, which scans originals, makes supplied artwork ready for outputting to films or printing plates and outputs pre-press proofs, films and digital prints.

resolution - the number of dots per inch or dots per centimetre that an input device can read in. Also the number of dots per unit length that an output device can show or print out. The higher the resolution the better the quality of a scan or print will be. A higher resolution will result in more detail and a greater ability to enlarge a bitmap image. A higher resolution results in a larger file size.

revised proof - a new proof which has taken in previous amendments and is issued for another bout of proof reading.

reversed out - light characters on a dark background.

right-reading - film which can be read from left to right when the emulsion side is visible (ie when the emulsion side is facing you).

right tab/right flush tab - a tab space which aligns the right-hand side of lines of characters.

roman - the regular weight and aspect of a typeface (not bold, italic, underlined, condensed or extended). Traditionally the term only applied to serif typefaces with upright stems at the regular weight, but modern usage often includes specification of sans serif typefaces in their normal (regular) variation.

rounding/rounding and backing - shaping a hardback book cover such that it comes out round rather than flat along the spine.

ruby - printer’s name for 5.5 point type.

rule - a horizontal line.

ruler line - used in word processing programs to show a ruler, margins and tab settings.

running head - a headline that appears on multiple pages, usually at the top of the page.

Go to top of page

S

saddle-stitching - stapling a set of folded sheets across the folded edge to produce a booklet.

sans serif - a style of type which has no cross strokes, embellishments or flourishes at the extremities of its characters (eg Arial and Helvetica).

scale - (1) the ratio between an original image and the represented version required or displayed; (2) see depth scale.

scanner - a device which uses reflected light to create and image of an original photo or piece of artwork on a computer as a bitmap image. Used in conjunction with OCR (optical character recognition) software it can read in typed documents as editable text.

screen - (1) the image displaying part of a computer monitor or other visual display unit; (2) a pattern of lines that makes up the formation of dots in a printed photographic or greyscale halftone image. The line screen or number of lines of dots per inch requires colour images to be produced at a resolution of roughly twice the line screen in most cases (eg for ordinary litho printing a line screen of 150 lines per inch requires a colour image of roughly 300 dots per inch at final size). Greyscale images need only be produced at resolutions of one and a half times the line screen value.

screen angle - in order to avoid moire patterns and produce an even spread of ink dots the four different process colour inks used in full colour printing have their line screens at different angles to each other. The usual screen angles are black (Key) at 45 degrees, magenta (M) at 75 degrees, yellow (Y) at 90 degrees and Cyan (C) at 105 degrees.

screen ruling - sometimes called the line screen value, the screen ruling is the number of lines (of ink dots) per inch (lpi).

section - a set of pages of a printed publication made out of a sheet of imposed pages folded into a signature ready for cutting.

serif - a cross stroke or flourish at the extremity of a type character. Serif typefaces include Times and Garamond.

separations - single constituent process colours of a full colour image run out separately from each other. Films for full colour work are run out as four individual film separations of cyan, yellow, magenta and black areas.

set-off - unwanted transfer of ink from one printed sheet to another as it goes through the printing press.

set size - the height of a specific typeface at a certain point size.

sheet - usually used to refer to an uncut rectangular piece of paper. A sheet may contain multiple imposed pages prior to folding and trimming of the folded edges.

sheetwise - printing of one side of a sheet at a time.

show-through - when you can see the printing on one side of sheet through its reverse side because the paper isn’t sufficiently thick or opaque.

signature - a folded sheet which, when trimmed at the edges will produce a complete section of pages. Signatures are usually in multiples of four, eight, 16 or 32 pages depending on the size of printing press to be used. The term signature is often used interchangeably with the term section.

silk screen printing - a type of printing using a frame with an attached taut, fine mesh onto which stencils are placed and ink applied. Used for T-shirt printing and sometimes for large format display printing.

slug - (1) line of type or marking in a piece of copy which indicates the origin of the author; (2) the enclosing horizontal metal bars of a composing stick, between which metal type characters are placed; (3) a line of type set by a linecasting machine; (4) a long strip of metal spacing material less than the type height used with movable metal type characters.

small caps - capital letters equal in height to lower case letters.

soft-hyphen - an arbitrary hyphen placed in a word to break it across two lines of justified text. (A hard hyphen is one that is grammatically necessary to the words eg full-time courses).

solid - (1) ink set at a tint value of 100 per cent (ie without gaps between dots); (2) setting type with no leading (ie setting solid).

sort - (1) a single character of type; (2) to set in a specified sequence.

spot colour - a second colour of ink in addition to black. If your were ordering a printed job using black ink and only one other colour your would say ‘black and one spot’.

spine - the outside edge of the part of a book cover which surrounds the bound edges of the text pages. Often carries the title, author name and imprint.

spline - a bound edge.

spread - a set of facing pages.

s/s - instruction to reproduce an item at the same size.

stet - proofing mark which means ‘ignore the marked up correction’.

styles - recognised categorisations of typefaces with the same feel eg script, cursive, grotesque, old face.

sub/sub-editor - an editorial quality controller who ensures that stories or articles are written with balance, accuracy and brevity, and that they are legally sound and in house style. The sub often cuts down stories supplied by writers to fit the space on a page and can be responsible for the placement of articles on a page. Other skills of the sub include headline and caption writing.

subscript - a small character resting below the baseline of the main characters in a line of type (often used in chemical formulae and mathematical equations).

subscription - (1) an advance order of number of issues of a magazine, newsletter, periodical or journal; (2) advance sales of a book to trade outlets; (3) the total number of copies of a book sold prior to publication.

subsidiary rights - rights other than the publisher’s right to produce editions of a book under its own imprint. Foreign publication and translation rights are often not included under this heading.

subtractive primaries - cyan, yellow and magenta. So called because, when printed or combined on paper, they filter out other colours (ie other frequencies) from white light reflecting only the resultant colour they display.

supercalender - a set of alternate hard metal rollers and soft rollers which produce a high gloss finish on paper.

superior - a small character placed above the rest of the characters in a line of text (often used to indicate footnotes).

superscript - a small character placed above other characters in a line of text (eg used in mathematics to indicate a number raised to a power).

surprint - printing on top of pre-printed items.

swash letters - ornamental letters (commonly used to introduce a chapter).

swatch - a set of ink colour specimens printed on cards or in booklets for colour specification.

synopsis - summary of the entire subject matter of a publication. Often sent by an author to publishing houses to enlist interest in publishing their book.

Go to top of page

T

tags - mark up characters for formatting a pieces of text eg <head>, <body>. Used in mark up codes and languages such as SGML (Standard Generalised Markup Language) and HTML (Hypertext Markup Language).

tail/tail margin - bottom margin of a page.

text type - type used for the main body text of a page.

thermographic printing/thermography - type of printing involving the heating of powder or inks to produce raised lettering on a sheet.

thermomechanical pulp (TMP) - a better grade of pulp than mechanical pulp produced by steam heating wood chips. Does not produce as high quality paper as CTMP or chemical/woodfree processes.

thin space - a space of a full stop (the thinnest space used to separate words).

tight - lines or words with little spacing.

tint - a shade of a solid colour produce by changing the ratio of ink dots to surface area (normally specified as a percentage eg Pantone 349cv at 50%).

tinted paper/card - coloured paper/card (ie paper/card that comes coloured before you print on it).

tip in - the fix a single leaf (ie a page-sized sheet) inside a section of pages.

tip on - to affix a single leaf or an endpaper to the outside of a section of pages.

title - (1)the name of book; (2) a synonym for a publication.

title page - a page at the front of a book, featuring: the title of the book; the author’s name and the imprint or publisher’s name.

title verso - another term for copyright page/imprint page because this page usually falls on the back of the title page (which is always on a right hand page).

tombstone - a page with ugly alignment of elements.

to view - the number of pages to view is the number of pages you can see on one side of the unfolded, uncut printed sheet.

trade paperback - a short run paperback, identical in format to a hard cover version except for a paperback cover.

transfers/transfer type/transfer lettering - letters on a transparent or semi-transparent sheet which are put on artwork by rubbing over the letters once they are placed in the correct position over the artwork (eg Letraset). (Sometimes called rub-downs).

transparency/trannie - a full colour photographic image in positive form on transparent film which requires a light source to be shone through it for viewing.

transparency adapter/transparency hood - a flat, wide, even light source (a bit like an upside down light box) which is used to illuminate transparencies so that they can be scanned on a flat bed scanner.

transparency scanner - specialist scanner for producing high quality scans from transparencies.

transpose/trans (trs) - an instruction to swap around the position of letters, words, lines or paragraphs of text.

trap/trapping - superimposing inks over each other in the correct areas such that there are no gaps or overlaps between inks where there shouldn’t be. Trapping values can be set for individual print jobs.

trim - to slice of the edges of sheets or signatures of paper.

trim marks - short hairlines on an uncut printed sheet, outside of the area of the final printed page(s), which indicate where the sheet is to be cut to make the pages their final size.

type - printed characters.

typesetting - arranging type so it is ready for printing or running out to film. Typesetting movable metal type is called composing.

typography - the art and science of arranging type in an aesthetically pleasing way.

typographic errors/typos - mistakes made in typesetting. (Also called literals).

Go to top of page

U

u&lc - upper and lower case. Sometimes written u/lc, ulc or U/L.

unbacked - printed only on one side.

uncoated - paper not treated with a coating. This type of paper is cheaper than coated stock and is suitable for text but not suitable for use with tonal or photographic images.

undercolour removal (UCR) - a process which removes unwanted overlapping colour and improves trapping.

upper case - Capital letters. So called because capital letter blocks of movable type used to be kept in individual letter boxes in an actual case above the lower case letters.

UV varnish - High gloss varnish that is dried on paper (cured) by exposure to ultraviolet light.

Go to top of page

V

vacuum frame - frame for making contact prints which holds the copy paper down by using vacuum pumps.

value - lightness of tone.

varnish - coating applied to a printed page to make it moisture resistant, help seal in the inks so that they don’t rub off and provide a gloss or matt finish.

VDU - Visual display unit. Another name for a computer monitor.

vector graphics - graphics made up using mathematical equations for curves and lines rather than using an image map of cells which are on or off in a rectangular or square grid. Vector graphics can scale to any size.

verso - left-hand page (Latin for left).

volume - a bound book or bound collection of journals, usually hardbacked and part of a series.

volume rights - rights allowing a publisher to produce a book and also issue other editions, reprints and sometimes sublicenses for reproduction of extracts or complete editions.

Go to top of page

W

warm colours - reds, oranges and yellows. Colours that seem to come to the fore in an image. The opposite of cold colours which seem to recede such as blues and purples).

web - a large continuous roll of paper for high volume printing.

web offset - a type of printing used for large numbers of copies which uses large continuous reel or roll of paper rather then pre-cut sheets. (See also offset).

weight - the boldness or thickness or a character or font.

wet-on-wet - process of superimposing the next printing ink before the previous one has dried.

widow - the last line of a paragraph appearing in isolation as the top line of new page.

with the grain - along the line that the fibres lie in the paper. If you do not fold with the grain the paper resists and bends back out.

WIMP - windows, icons, menus, pointers. Type of operating system which uses the features mentioned.

woodfree/woodfree pulp - woodfree does not mean that wood is not used to make the pulp. Woodfree pulp is chemically processed pulp for paper making containing little or no mechanically ground pulp. Sulphites, sulphates and soda are used to remove the internal bonding agents that hold the wood grains together leaving a mass of individual wood fibres. This process produces higher quality paper with increased whiteness, strength and longevity.

work and tumble - printing on one side of a sheet and turning it over so that gripper edge is on the opposite edge of the sheet so the blank side can be printed on. Cutting a work and tumble sheet in half gives two copies of the same item.

work and turn - printing on both sides of the sheet, keeping one placement of the sheet against the gripper edge. Cutting a work and turn sheet in half gives two copies of the same item.

workings - the number of workings is the number of times a set of sheets are passed through a printed press to get into their final printed state. For example, if you only had access to a two-colour printing press and wanted to print an item in four colours, this would require two workings.

wrong-reading - film which reads backwards when the emulsion side is visible (ie when the emulsion side is facing you). (Sometimes called reverse-reading).

WYSIWIG - what you see is what you get. A software system which displays a true representation of the final output. Some people use the term WYSIWYSOG - what you see is what you sort of get - for systems where a broadly accurate display is given of what the final output will be.

Go to top of page

X

xenon flash - high intensity light source used in photosetting.

xerography - the charging of paper is specific areas so that toner powder sticks on it to produce an image (like the drum charging process used in photocopying).

x-height - height from baseline to top of a lower case letter x. This is taken to be the height of letters minus ascenders or descenders.

x-line - imaginary line which runs across the top of lower case letters. Sometimes called the mean line.

Go to top of page

Y

yankee dryer - a steam heated drying cylinder which gives paper a glazed finish.

yellowing - the turning yellow of a low quality paper with age.

Go to top of page

Z

zinc engraving - short run blocking using a zinc block to produce a relief engraving.

zinco/zinc - a zinc block used for zinc engraving.

Zip-a-Tone - trade name for patterns, lines and dots sold on rub-down transfer sheets.

Go to top of page

Printable notes for this topic in PDF format (Acrobat Reader required):

[Glossary of Publishing Related Terms (41 page PDF - 92kB)]

Also see Publishers Association Website (click on 'Guidelines'). Useful links include 'Acronyms Explained' and 'Glossary of Book Trade Terminology':

[Publishers Association Website]

See Printflow 'Jargon Buster' for a glossary of Printing Terminology':

[Printflow Website]

Download plug-ins:

[Adobe Acrobat Reader]