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

Gloss
The property that's responsible for coated paper's shiny or lustrous appearance; also the measure of a sheet's surface reflectivity. Gloss is often associated with quality: higher qua- lity coated papers exhibit hight gloss. Champion Kromekote is a paper noted and sold for its exceptionally high gloss. see also cast coating, coated paper.

Gloss ink
Quick drying, non-penetrating ink for use in litho and letterpress printing on coated papers where the ink will dry without penetration.

Glossy
Coated paper, best for sharp repro and quick drying.

Glue bound
See Perfect bound.

Glyphic
Letter shapes based on those originally carved in stone.

Gold blocking
Stamping a design onto a book cover using gold leaf and a heated die or block.

Golden Ratio or Mean
The rule devised to give proportions of height to width when laying out text and illustrations to produce the most optically pleasing result. It is 1:1.6.

GoLive
A WYSIWYG web page editor from Adobe. Competitor with Dreamweaver, from Macromedia.

Gothic
Typefaces with no serifs and broad even strokes.

Gouache
Opaque watercolour comes in tubes. The pigments are mixed with either white lead, bone ash or chalk.

Grade
Grade a type or class of paper identified as having the same composition and characteristics. Grade is a generic paper category, such as writing, offset, cover, tag, and index paper. It can also refer to the quality level of the paper; or to a mill's specific brand of paper, such as Champion Carnival, Benefit, or Kromekote.

Gradient fill
Background fill created with illustration and presentation programs characterised by a smooth gradation from one colour to another, or from one colour to white or black The direction of the transition can be in any direction. Also known as a vignette.

Grain
The direction in which more fibers lie in a sheet of paper. As paper is formed, the slurry of fibers moves forward on the forming wire at high speeds, aligning the fibers in the direction of the movement and creating the grain. At the same time, the machine shakes the slurry of fibers from side to side, so that the fibers crisscross. This crisscros…

Grain direction
If a paper's length is in the direction of the grain, it is grain long If the paper's width is the direction of the grain, it is grain short.

Grain Long
Grain running along the length, or long side, of a sheet of paper (23'x35'). Fibers line up parallel to the long side of the paper. This book in your hands is an example of grain-long binding.

Grain Short
Grain running along the width, or short side, of a sheet of paper (35'x23'). Fibers line up parallel to the short side of the paper. see also grain, grain long.

Gram
Unit of weight in the metric system; the weight of one cubic centimetre of water at standard conditions. 28.35 grams equal one ounce.

Grammage
Weight in grams of a quantity of paper cut to sheets that measure one square meter.

Graphic
A non-text item, illustration, photograph or artwork.

Graphic Design
A way of communication with visual elements and information to present an idea or concept.

Graphic Designer
The person who puts Graphic Designs together, many of whom now use computers, drafting and illustration techniques and other tools to create with.

Graphic text
Words formatted as graphic files retaining the designers` original typeface, type size, type style colour and background choices. Graphic text always appears the same, regardless of the type of hardware or software used to display it.

Graphite
Naturally occurring crystalline, allotropic form of carbon made up of hexagonal laminas. It can be produced artificially by heating anthracite in an electric furnace.

Gravure
A printing process that uses intaglio, or recessed, image carri- ers. The image carrier, which is flat or cylindrical, moves through an ink pool. A blade scrapes excess ink off the plane of the plate, leaving ink in the recessed wells. A second cylinder presses the paper onto the plates, where it picks up ink from the wells. The high speed of gravu…

Gravure Printing
A printing process that employs minute engraved wells. Deeply etched wells carry more ink than a raised surface; hence print darker value shallow wells are used to print values. A doctor blade wipes excess ink from the cylindrical printing surface.

Greek
Usually nonsense words and letterforms that are not legible used in a design to approximate the 'colour' of a page. Used primarily before final text is available for a client comps.

Greeking
A software device where areas of grey are used to simulate lines of text. One of desktop publishing's less clever methods of getting round the slowness of high-resolution displays.

Grey scale
A range of luminance values for evaluating shading through white to black. Frequently used in discussions about scanners as a measure of their ability to capture halftone images. Basically the more levels the better.

Grid
A systematic division of a page into areas to enable designers to ensure consistency. The grid acts as a measuring guide and shows text, illustrations and trim sizes.

Gripper
The row of clips holding the sheet of paper as it speeds through the press.

Gripper edge
Edge of the sheet of paper caught by the grippers that pull paper into the press for printing.

Gripper margin
The precise clearance allowed on the paper's edge to avoid damaging the printed image.

Groove Finish
A textured paper like Champion Carnival Groove, with shallow, parallel furrows or grooves running along the surface. Embossing the paper after it comes off the paper- making machine creates this finish.

Ground
Thin, protective coating that keeps acid from penetrating non-image areas of a plate.

Groundwood Paper
Paper that contains between 10 and 75% of groundwood pulp. The groundwood pulping process, also know as mechanical pulping, leaves many natural impurities, like lignin, in the paper. As a result, groundwood paper is less bright and ages faster than freesheet paper, which is made from chemical pulping. Groundwood paper isn't recommended for any prin…

GSM
Grams per square metre. The unit of measurement for paper weight.

Guard
A narrow strip of paper or linen pasted to a single leaf to allow sewing into a section for binding.

Guard bars
The bars that are at both ends and center of UPC and EAN symbols. They provide reference points for scanning.

GUI - "gooey"
Takes advantage of the computers graphics capabilities to make a programme easier to use. The GUI frees a user from learning complex languages and feature pointers, icons, graphical menus etc.

Guillemets
Small angled quotes used in Europe where ' ' are used in English. AKA Ducks Foot Quotes.

Guillotine
A machine used to trim stacks of paper, which works like the original French guillotine worked. A cutting blade moves between two upright guides and slices the paper uniformly as it moves downward. See also trimming, trim size.

Gum Arabic
Used to desensitise non-printing areas and to sensitise etching areas on a printing plate.

Gutter
The central blank area between left and right pages.

Gutter
In a double page spread (dps) this is the space between a leg of copy measured across the spine or binding of the publication to the corresponding leg of copy i.e. verso to recto (Left to right).

Gutter bleed
Continuing of an image from one page across to the facing page of a spread - aka crossover.

Hair-line rule
The thinnest rule that can be printed.

Hair-lines
Thin strokes of a typeface.

Halation
Spreading of light around the highlight in an image.

Half up
Artwork one and a half times the size which it will be reproduced, which would be one third down.

Half-round Cutters
Are made from blanks that have been 'split' or 'halved' approximately on centre through a grinding process. This tool has a cross-section that is half of a cylinder and is the choice for most engraving cutter applications.

Halftone
A printed picture that uses dots to simulate the tones between light and dark. Because a printing press cannot change the tone of ink, it will only print the ink colour being used on press. This works well for printing text or line art: the press simply puts a full dose of ink for each letter or line on the paper, creating small solid areas of ink.…

Halftone cell
An arrangement of dots used to simulate a traditional halftone on a digital printer. Because an imagesetter can only produce black dots, it must simulate shades of grey by turning some of the dots in the cell on or off. If half the dots are on, it appears to be 50% grey. Since PostScript can handle 256 shades of grey, the optimal halftone cell is 8…

Halftone dot
Basic unit in a halftone. Various sizes of halftone dots recreate original continuous-tone copy for reproduction.

Halftone engraving
Relief printing plate made from a halftone negative.

Halftone negative
Negative film used to shoot continuous-tone copy through a halftone screen.

Halftone positive
Film resulting from exposure through a halftone negative.

Halftone process
Process of reproducing continuous-tone copy by shooting it with a screen that separates the image into a series of dots.

Halftone screen
Converts the original grey tones of continuous-tone copy into halftone dots for reproduction.

Halo effect
Occurs when ink builds up around printed letters or halftone dots, giving the centre a lighter appearance. Also called Halation.

Hand-engraving
The art of engraving done freehand using specially shaped and contoured hand-held tools and requiring a considerable degree of artistic talent.

Hang tag
A term used to describe fold-over labels generally used for product identification. These products usually 'hang' in the retail marketplace.

Hanging indent
Where the first line of a paragraph is set full out to the column, and the remaining lines are indented by 1 em.

Hanging punctuation
Punctuation that is allowed to fall outside the margins instead of staying within the measure of the text.

Hard copy
Typewritten copy or computer printout of digital data. Used to check for errors in typesetting, for example.

Hard disk
A rigid disk sealed inside an airtight transport mechanism. Information stored may be accessed more rapidly than on floppy disks and far greater amounts of data may be stored. Often referred to as Winchester disks.

Hard dot
A very clean, fringe less, sharp dot.

Hardback
A case bound book with a separate stiff board cover.

Hardness
Degree of hardness. Shore and Rockwell being two scales used to measure and compare hardness.

Hardwood Pulp
Pulp made from deciduous trees (trees that drop their leaves, such as maple and oak). Hardwood pulp has short fibers, which give paper bulk, body, and smoothness. Papers are often made from a blend of hardwood and softwood pulps, combining the qualities of both into a single paper.

Haze
A degree of cloudiness in a plastic material.

Head
The margin at the top of a page.

Head trim
Standard allowance (usually 1/8 inch or 3mm) between the tops of pages that are trimmed off.

Headbox
The compartment that holds pulp slurry before it is sprayed or poured onto the paper-forming wire of a papermaking machine.

Header. See Running head.
See Running head.

Headline
Title of the book at the top of each page of text. When the title is on the verso page and the chapter on the recto it is a running head.

Heat resistance
Property of a material that inhibits the occurrence of physical or chemical changes caused by exposure to high temperatures.

Heat seal
(Heat Activated Labels): Label paper that has a plastic coating that melts under heat to form the bonding agent.

Heat-set inks
Inks that are dried quickly with heat and then chilled.

Heavy coat weight
A higher-than-standard weight of coating per unit area.

Heidelberg
An automatic press first made in 1914 by Schnellpressenfabrik A.G.

Helvetica
A sans serif typeface.

Hemp
A plant fiber used to make paper. Desirable because it grows quickly and its fibers are strong (they are also used to make rope).

Hexachrome
A proprietary colour separation process, developed by Pantone, which uses six (6) instead of four process colours.

Hickeys
An irregularity in the ink coverage of a printed area. Hickeys are caused by paper or pressroom dust, dirt, or pick out on the printing blanket, all of which prevents the ink from adhering to the paper surface aka donut, fisheye, bull`s-eye.

High contrast
Large difference of dark to light areas in a photographic reproduction.

High Temperature Adhesive
An adhesive that will enable a pressure-sensitive label to adhere or stick well when applied to a hot substrate and has a high degree of resistance to aging or deterioration at elevated temperatures.

High-speed steel
Is a term used to describe a wide range of steel alloys used for cutting tools. These materials incorporate varying amounts of many different elements (Tungsten, Molybdenum. Cobalt, etc.) to produce specific hardness and cutting characteristics. High Speed Steel tools are more resilient than those made from carbide, however they do not possess the …

Highlight
The lightest area in a photograph or illustration.

Holding power (Shear, Adhesion)
Ability to withstand stress, as in holding rigid label materials on small diameter cylindrical objects. Involves both adhesive and cohesive strength.

Holdout
Property of paper that makes it resistant to absorption of ink.

Hologram
Laser-created, three-dimensional recording of a 3D or 2D image reproduced by hot foil stamping or embossing onto reflective-backed mylar.

Home page
The first screen that visitors encounter when they reach a Web site. It typically contains a short introduction describing the purpose of the Web site or the company, association or individual's area of expertise with links that will take visitor to other areas of the site.

Hosting
The maintenance of a computer system and applications at a third-party site.

Hot Melt Adhesive
A pressure-sensitive adhesive applied to the liner or backing in a hot molten form that cools to form a conventional pressure-sensitive adhesive. Thermoplastic materials with 100% solids that liquefy when heated and re-solidify on cooling.

Hot metal
Generic term for type cast from molten metal.

Hot Stamping
A decorating process in which the desired image is transferred to a substrate by a heated, positive copy die. Images are normally limited to one colour positive copy line.

House style
Style of preferred spelling, punctuation, spacing, hyphenation and indentation used by a designer, printer, publishing house or by a particular publication to ensure consistent typesetting.

HTML
Hypertext Markup Language is the language that browsers use to construct a Web page on a computer screen - it is a programming code consisting of symbols - tags - inserted before and after text and the filenames of graphics that are downloaded.

HTTP
Hypertext Transfer Protocaol; request-response protocol, the language spoken between the browser (client software) and the web server (server software) so they can communicate with each other and exchange files.

Hue
Unique distinguishing characteristics between colours as identified by name - for example cyan, magenta, red, blue, or green - as distinct from their brightness or saturation.