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Print Technology Warehouse - Printing glossary Category: Agriculture and Industry > Printing Date & country: 15/12/2007, UK Words: 1575

Shear
A cutting device that cuts material through the closure of two blades. In our industry shears are normally purchased for cutting metal or plastic. Standard metal shears (the cutting edge of the upper blade is generally ground at an angle of eight degrees to the blade's edge) are capable of cutting brass up to .025' thick or aluminium up to .040' th…

Shear Adhesion
The time required, under specified test condition, to slide a standard area of pressure-sensitive label from a standard flat surface in a direction parallel to the surface.

Shear cut
Term that describes a cut of a continuous web of stock using an action similar to the action of scissors.

Shear Strength
Internal or cohesive strength of the adhesive.

Shear Test
A method of separating two adhesive bonded materials by forcing (either by compression or tension) the interfaces to slide over each other. The force exerted is distributed over the entire bonded area at the same time. Strengths are recorded in pounds per square inch.

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

Sheet work
Sections printed by backing up a sheet with a different form from the front. The opposite of work and turn.

Sheet-fed Press
A press that prints single sheets of paper, rather than a continuous roll or web of paper. A sheet-fed press prints more slowly than a web press, and is typically used for shorter runs.

Sheeting
Process whereby rolls of PS base stock are converted into sheets of finished labels by cutting them to the desired length in the sheeting stations on a rotary press.

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.

Sheffield
A test used to measure the smoothness of paper by measuring the rate of airflow over the surface of the sheet. The lower the number, the smoother the sheet.

Shelf Life
Storage life. The period of time during which a product can be stored under specified conditions and still remain suitable for use.

Show-through
When a printed impression on one side of a sheet is visible through the other side of the paper.

Show-through
See opacity.

Shrink Wrapping
A technique of packaging in which the strains in a plastic film are released by raising the temperature of the film thus causing it to shrink over the package.

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. Also known as Side wire.

Sidebar
Firstly a text element, typically three to six pars long, next to a longer text article providing visual interest and permitting you to devote space to a single aspect of the longer article without interrupting the overall flow of the article and secondly the vertical bar on either side of a web site containing navigation.

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

Signature
The letter at the tail of the first page in a section, in alphabetical order, serves as a guide to the binder in gathering. Also refers to the individual sections themselves.

Silicone
A unique polymer system that can be a very effective release coating, or pressure-sensitive adhesive capable of functioning effectively at extreme temperatures.

Silicone Adhesive
Adhesive compounds of this base have remarkable stability through a wide temperature range. Chief limitations in use are their high temperature cure, sensitivity to and aromatic fuels and relatively high cost.

Silicone coating
A unique polymer system which can be a very effective release coating.

Silicone stain test
A water based stain used to test silicone coating coverage and continuity on die cut paper release liners.

Silk Screen
See screen printing

Single-Faced
The adhesive is applied to one side of the backing only. Most pressure- sensitive tapes are of this type.

Sink
Or drop is a page layout technique based on reducing column height and adding white space to the top of each page. Sinks unify a publication and provide page to-page continuity.

Site map
A site map provides an overview of the contents of a Web site, showing visitors which pages are present and allowing them to navigate more quickly - typically text-only they load faster and occupy less on-screen space than would

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

Size
A solution based on starch or casein that is added to the paper to reduce ink absorbency.

Sizing a resin
Such as rosin, added to pulp before it's formed into paper, or added to the surface of the paper after it's dry. Sizing acts as a glue to keep the fibers of the finished paper tight, since loose fibers on the surface of the paper can cause printing problems. Sizing also helps the finished paper repel water, which is an especially important property…

Skewing
When plate or blanket cylinder are not parallel and so do not make proper contact.

Skid
A platform built with a solid wood bottom, for holding stacks of paper not packed in cartons. Paper may be ordered in skids or cartons. When printers are printing a large job, they generally prefer skids to cartons.

Slab serif
A typeface with heavy square serifs.Also called Egyptian.

Slip Sheet
A release treated sheet used to protect the edges of rolls from sticking to each other while stacked.

Slit
To cut rolls of stock to specified widths. Either rotary or stationary knives or blades are used with mechanical unwinding and rewinding devices.

Slit back
See split back.

Slit face
See split face.

Slitter
A sharp disk that cuts paper into pre-determined widths.

Slot
A cut make in a material of a specific size and location. May have the face material removed when used to feed through imprinters.

Slurring
A smearing of the image, caused by paper slipping during the impression stage.

Slurry
A thin, watery mixture. The mixture of pulp and water that is poured on to the papermaking machine is often referred to as slurry.

Small caps
A set of capital letters that are smaller than standard and are equal in size to the lower case letters for that type size.

Smooth Finish
Paper finished to a Sheffield smoothness between 50 and 150.

Smoothness
The surface property of paper that describes its degree of uniform evenness and flatness. When printing, the smoother the paper, the better the ink dot formation and the sharper the image.

SMTP
Simple Mail Transfer Protocol: worldwide de facto electronic messaging standard. Limited to ASCII characters it facilitates mail between the Internet and other networks.

Smudge Resistance
Smear Resistance. Resistance of a printed-paper surface to ink blurring or smearing and thus related to the absorption of the paper.

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 place the text or graphics in the correct position.

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

Soft dot
Excessive halation around a halftone dot.

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

Soft return
Shift-Return on a Mac.

Softwood Pulp
Pulp made from coniferous trees (evergreen tress with cones and needles, such as pine and fir trees). Paper is often made using a blend of pulps; softwood pulp has long fibers, giving paper strength; hardwood fibers are short, lending smoothness, bulk, and body.

Solid Gum
The use of 100% adhesive coverage on a pressure-sensitive material.

Solidus (-)
A slash character. The regular slash is the virgule; one designed for typing fractions is called a solidus (produced on the Mac with Option-Shift-1). It has a different angle allowing better kerning of numbers over and under it.

Solvent
A chemical substance capable of thinning or reducing the viscosity of ink, coating or adhesives. Specifically, a solvent is a liquid that dissolves another substance.

Solvent adhesives
Adhesives' components are dissolved in a variety of organic solvents for coating. Rubber or acrylic-based systems can be coated this way.

Solvent resistance
The resistance of a P.S. label to the action of specific organic liquids.

Solvent welding
Using chemical solvents such as methylene chloride to glue plastics together.

Specifications-specs
The description of the requirements of a particular printing job - including size, press run and colour, given to the printer by the client.

Specifying Paper
Choosing the appropriate paper for a specific printing job, in order to meet its individual design, printing, handling, and economic requirements. A paper merchant or a paper mill consultant when choosing a paper frequently assists designers and printers.

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.

Spindle
The part of an engraving machine that holds the cutter.

Spine
Centre of the case of a book that covers the back when it is cased in.

Split back
Slits in the release liner to facilitate its removal by hand.

Split face
Slits in face or pressure-sensitive product usually for facilitating removal from the release coated backing.

Split fountain
Printing more than one colour with one impression by using more than one ink in the ink fountain.

Split liner
See split back.

Spoils, spoilage
Badly finished sheets discarded before delivery of a job.

Spot colour
Single colours, either added to the pages of a document, e.g. most newspaper front pages used produced with a black plate and a spot colour red for the logo or nameplate or also be added to four colour process documents as either straight Spot colours to get the vibrancy you can`t get from process, or specialty inks like metallics or flouros.

Spot varnishing
Varnishing specific areas on stock.

Spread (1)
Two pages that face each other, also called a DPS, Two-page spread, Double-truck.

Spread (2)
Spreading the ink beyond the edge of an object so that there is no gap between it and the next coloured object. 'Choke and Spread' are common methods of trapping elements of a printing job.

SPSI
Samples Per Square Inch. This is the square of a DPI measurement used as it gives a true representation of resolution density. Hence a 300 dpi image is 90000 SPSI, whereas a 600dpi image is 360000, making its resolution density four times greater - and the image quality is obviously better.

Spunbonded Olefin
Describes a synthetic plastic material formed by the random distribution of very fine continuous fibers which are self-bonded by heat and pressure.

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.

Stack press
Flexographic press where the printing stations are placed one above the other, each with its own impression roll.

Stacker
Device on the take-off end of a press that automatically stacks sheeted labels.

Standard viewing conditions
The area surrounded by neutral grey and illuminated by a light source of 5,000 Kelvin both for viewing transparencies and reflection prints.

Standing cap
A large capital letter that shares a baseline with the adjoining text but rises above it.

Standoff
The distance between a graphic and the text that wraps around it.

Start-stop character
A bar code character that provides the scanner with start or stop reading instructions as well as code orientation. The start character is usually at the left-hand end and the stop character at the right-hand corner of a picket-fence oriented code.

Stat
Photostat copy.

Static
Electrical charges generated in handling materials which cause materials to cling together. Can jump to humans or equipment causing shock or fire if solvents are present. With reference to films, causes them to cling to one another or to other insulating surfaces.

Static cling
An induced property of a film which enables it to grab onto a smooth clean surface without using a pressure-sensitive adhesive. Static cling is a phrase applied to both mechanical grabbing and grabbing by electrical static.

Static eliminator
A device for neutralizing static electricity.

Static neutraliser
A device that removes static electricity from paper.

Steel engraving
Intaglio printing process that presses an inked, engraved surface onto paper, leaving a raised printed impression.

Steel-to-steel label
See anvil cut or sheeted labels.

Stem
The main vertical stroke making up a type character.

Stencil
A sheet of plastic, paper, or other material with letters or an image cut out of it. When placed on a surface and inked, it reproduces the cut-away images onto the material behind it.

Step-and-repeat
Photomechanical process of using negative or positive images to produce multiple images.

Stepped anvil
An anvil which has had either the bearer or body area reduced in order for die blades to cut to different depth than originally intended.

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

Stickyback
Double-faced adhesive coated material used for mounting printing plates to the plate cylinder.

Stochastic screening
A relatively new method for creating halftones. Rather than producing the regularly space dots of lined screens, stochastic screening generates randomly placed dots. Because the generation of the dots is frequently modulated, the technique is also called FM screening. Registration on press is slightly more difficult than with lined screens, but the…

Stock
A printer`s term for paper to be used for printing.

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

Strawboard
A thicker board made from straw pulp, used in bookwork and in the making of envelopes and cartons.

Strike-through
The effect of ink soaking through the printed sheet. See Show-through.