Glossary of Printing

Art:  All copy used in preparing a printed piece

Bleed:  Enlargement of the borders of an illustration so that after printing and trimming to size, the desired margins will be flush with the edge of the sheet or page

Blueline:  This is a proof that shows exact color breaks in varying shades of blue on white paper

Break for Color:  To separate parts to be printed in different colors

Camera Ready:  Copy and/or art ready to be photographed

Color Correction:  Adjustments of color values in the reproduction process used to ensure a correct image

Color Keys:  Off-press overlay proofs using 3M materials

Color Separation:  The conversion of a color photograph or drawing into its component spec tral colors: cyan, yellow, magenta and black (CYMK), with one screened negative produced per color

Contact Screen:  A screen that photographically produces a dot pattern on films and plates to create halftone negatives

Continuous Tone:   A photograph containing gradient tones from black to white

Copy:  All text, photographs and other visuals used in a printed piece

Cromalin:  Brand name of DuPont materials used to make off-press color proofs

Crop:  To trim portions of a photograph or other visual element

Cyan:  A shade of blue ink used in four-coloring printing

Desktop Publishing (DTP):  The use of a PC in the creation of fully composed pages, com prised of text and graphics, using off-the -shelf application software that outputs to a laser printer (or other output device) which is typically driven by PostScript (a device-independent page description language).

Dot:  Halftones are composed of dots

Drop-out:  Parts of originals that will not produce

Dummy:  Preliminary layout showing positions of text and illustrations

Film Negative:  A photographic negative which reverses light and dark areas

Folio:  The page number

Fonts:  A complete set of characters in a single typeface. The character set for Times Roman, Times Italic and Times Bold Italic are each different "fonts", comprising a "type family"

Font Size:  The size of a font, measured in points, from the lowest descender to the highest ascender

Gathering:  The assembling of folded signatures in proper sequence

Galley Proof:  A proof of text copy before it is made into pages

Gutter:  The blank space from the printing area to the binding. Also known as inner margin

Halftone:  The reproduction of continuous-tone photographs by a mechanical or electronic process that converts the image into dots of various sizes

Imposition:  The positioning of pages for large press sheets so that when cutting and fold ing is complete the images will be in the correct sequence

Insert:  A printed piece that is inserted into a newspaper, magazine or other printed piece

Keyline:  An outline drawing that shows the size and position of illustrations and half-tone images

Layout:  The placement of elements, such as text and graphics, on a page

Light Table/Box:  Table or box with a glass surface that is illuminated from below, used for making transparencies, stripping, retouching or viewing photographic work

Line Copy:  Copy that can be reproduced without a halftone screen

Magenta:  A red ink used in four-color printing

Mechanical:  Camera-ready copy art

Mock-up:  A rough representation of a printed piece or design indicating size, color, typestyle and other graphic elements

Moire:  The crisscross pattern that appears on color illustrations that are not correctly separated

Off Press Proof:  Photomechanical or digitally produced proofs that cost less and take less time than regular press proofs

Overlay:  A transparency used to indicate color breaks, instructions and corrections

Overlay Proof:  An off-press color proof

Outsert:  Any additional printed piece included in a polybag and mailed with the host publication

Pagination:  Numbering the pages of a book, newspaper or periodical

Pantone Matching System:  The trade mark name for a system of color matching in materials like inks, papers and markers

Paste-Up:  See mechanical

Perfect Binding:  Books that are bound by glue rather than having pages that are sewn in or stapled

Photo Mechanical Transfer:  Mechanically produced photoprints taken from originals to use in paste-ups and presentations

PMS:  See Pantone Matching System

PMT:  Photomechanical transfer

Position Proof:  Color proof used by printer to check position, layout and/or color breakouts

Process Colors:  The four colors of printing inks: cyan, magenta, yellow and black

Proof:  An impression made from an inked plate, stone, screen, block, or type made to check the accuracy of the piece about to be produced

Register:  To put two or more pages in exact alignment

Register Marks:  Crosses drawn on original copy before photography to indicate color registration and/or negative positioning

Rubylith:  A brand name for sheets of colored membrane on acetate that can be cut to shape to mask irregular areas of artboards

Saddle Stitch/Wire:  A method of assembling brochures in which the pages are opened over a saddle-shaped support and stitched through the back

Signature:  In printing and binding, the name given to a printed sheet after it's been folded

Stock:  The paper to be printed on

Stripping:  Assembling two or more photographic images to produce a composite

Tint:  Various even tone areas (strengthens/percentages) of a solid color

Tissue Overlay:  Thin transparent paper placed over artwork to indicate color breaks and corrections

Trim Marks:  Marks that indicate the edge of the page

Velox:  A print made from a screen negative

-Up:  two-up, three-up, etc. denotes that a piece is being printed on a larger size sheet in order to take advantage of a full press

SIG Editors Manual
Updated November 1993