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FiskPrinters - Printing Terms Category: Technical and IT > Glossary of Print Terms & Paper Sizes Date & country: 25/11/2008, UK Words: 180

just in time printing
Allows documents to be stored digitally and then produced at a given time. This type of process allows for only the number of copies needed to be printed.

keyline
A line drawn on artwork which indicates an area for tint-laying, positioning of half-tones, etc. where this must be done at a later stage.

knocking up
Aligning the edges of a pile of paper.

kraft paper
Chemical wood pulp produced by digesting wood by the sulphate process. Originally a strong unbleachable

label papers
A large variety of plain or coloured papers which are made to be gummed.

laid lines
A continuous watermark consisting of very close parallel lines, generally associated with spaced lines called chain lines (q.v.) at tight angles to them.

laid paper
Usually printing or writing paper with a ribbed appearance caused by the use of a wire roll or dandy roll at the wet end of the paper machine.

laminate
A converted product made by combining together suitable paper or board either with other paper or board or with other material such as plastics or metal foil, generally by means of an adhesive, to form a product with particular qualitites.

lamination
The process of laminating paper or board with other materials.

laser printing
Images are produced through electronic impulses using an intense beam of focused light.

layout
An overall term to describe the design of the form.

letterpress
Printing from images with a raised surface which are inked and impressed directly onto the surface of the material.

light fast
Inks that will not fade to any significant extent even after prolonged exposure to light are termed light-fast.

line perf
A perforated line which runs along the length of a form. Usually to be used as a separate description of a perf line in the middle of the form, rather than perf lines that appear at the side of the form for detaching the sprocket punched holes (see side perfs.)

line work
A printing term used to simply describe printing in which lines of ink, or perhaps solid blocks of ink appear.

lint
Surface fibres released from paper during printing.

listing paper
A form of continuous paper, used for computer listings, punched with sprocket holes at the edges and traditionally printed with light green horizontal lines set to the same pitch as the printing device.

lithographic printing
A flat printing process in which the non-image areas of the printing plate are made wettable and the image areas are made to repel water whilst attracting the printing medium (ink).

make-ready
Time spent preparing a machine to run a specific job. The cost of this non-productive time is normally passed on to the client, unlike down time.

manilla
Originally paper made from pulp produced partly or entirely of manilla hemp, but now mostly composed of softwood kraft pulp.

matt paper
A coated paper with a dull smooth finish.

micr
Magnetic Ink Character Recognition Paper - usually a high quality bond paper with good surface characteristics and dimensional stability for printing with magnetic inks for computer sorting.

microperf
A very finely cut perforated edge, designed to simulate the effect of a guillotine cut edge. (Also known as clean edge).

mis-register
The appearance of a printed image out of its correct position.

moire
A French word used to describe the type of pattern produced when printing two or more colours in half tone derived from screens, the angles of which differ by only a few degrees.

mottle
The appearance of irregular spots or blotches in a printed area that should be even in colour.

multipart
Refers to a business form which contains more than one leaf of paper (both NCR and OTC).

ncr
No Carbon Required. This term has now been superceded by the term Carbonless.

nip
The pressure point between two rollers

ocr
Optical Character Recognition Paper - similar to MICR paper.

omr
Optical Mark Recognition. It is the process whereby the typed or written position of a 'mark' (i.e. a 'tick') on a piece of paper denotes an instruction to an electronic forms processing device. i.e. Lottery Ticket.

otc
One time carbon which is very thin carbon paper designed to be used within a form just one time.

pages
Interpret pages as 'sides'. i.e. a 2 page A4 is a double sided A4 sheet, a 4 page A4 is 4 sides of A4, i.e. an A3 double sided sheet folded in half.

papermark
A mark placed in the paper after it has been made and not during the papermaking process. The mark can be produced through printing, chemical application or embossing. Some marks are good imitations of a watermark, but are imitations.

particle gummed
A paper with a 'lick and stick' gummed coating on the reverse of the paper. Particle gumming results in a matt finish to the paper and is undetectable to the human eye.

perfecting
Printing both sides of the substrate at the same pass through a printing machine.

picking
The rupture of the surface of paper during manufacture or printing, which occurs when an external tensile force applied to the surface (eg from an ink which is too tacky) is greater than the cohesion of the paper.

pms
Abbreviation for Pantone Mixing System. This is an ink system where eight primary colours are mixed in defined ratios to achieve a specific colour. If a client asks for a specific Pantone Colour they will quote a Pantone Reference, i,e, PMS 357. All printers then understand the reference and know how to achieve the colour required.

primary colours
Standard ink colours that are supplied by ink manufacturers and which do not require mixing by a printer. See also Pantone. But primary colours need not be only the PMS primary colours. NB If your customer names a colour, eg Royal Blue, ask your printer to provide samples or proofs ot his colour for customer's approval before printing is given the go-ahead.

process printing
All fine colour reproduction of photographs or artists works is printed via the 'process' method. Described simply, each photograph is rephotographed through red, blue, yellow and grey colour filters. This produces four images, which in turn leads to the production of four printing plates, one each of which will print a red, blue (cyan), yellow and black image. Each colour is superimposed, one o...

proof
A pre-production print, made for the purpose of checking accuracy of layout, type matter, tone & colour reproduction.

quire
Traditional term for one twentieth of a ream. The traditional ream was 480 sheets, so the quire was 24 sheets.

real art
See Art Paper

recycled paper
Paper made all or in part from recycled pulp.

recycled pulp
Pulp made from waste paper or board and used to make paper. It may or may not be de-inked. The quality of the fibres deteriorates with recycling, so paper cannot be endlessly recycled.

reel to reel
A machine on which the material is supplied in reel form and comes off the machine also in reel form.

register
The accurate positioning of images on a sheet relative to one another.

register marks
A set of fine line crosses or other suitable devices added to original artwork to provide reference points for accurate subsequent multi-colour printing or finishing processes.

report generator
An element within computer software which dictates the position and text of information to be produced by the output printer device on paper stationery. The computer programme which is the report generatorb - determines how the business form is to be designed.

retarders
Slow drying solvents used for reducing the drying rate of an ink.

reverse side printing
Printing on the underside of a leaf of paper.

reversed out printing
Text is normally printed directly onto paper. The process of 'reversing out' is to print a solid block of colour while leaving the text to be read as unprinted areas on the paper, i.e. 'white' text being read on a background of solid colour - seen often in titles.

rice paper
Sometimes a material which has the same appearance and purposes as paper is called 'paper'. Rice paper is an example, since it is not paper but the sliced and flattened pith of a plant which grows in Taiwan; it is used by Chinese artists as a surface for painting.

royal
An older standard paper size, 480mm x 636mm.

runnability
The ability of a paper or board to perform on a printing press or on converting machinery without problems.

screen ruling
The number of lines per inch (or centimetre) on a half-tone or tint screen, equal to the number of dots per inch on the printed image.

secondary colour
Colour made by mixing two primary colours.

self adhesive paper
Used essentially for labelling purposes, this grade has a self-adhesive coating on one side and a surface suitable for printing on the other. The adhesive is protected by a laminate which enables the sheet to be fed through printers or printing machines, the laminate subsequently being stripped when the label is applied.

self-separating glue
A carbonless cut set which has been tip glued using self separateing glue - a method of production rather than being of specific importance to the cut set. (known also as Fanapart glue).

set-off
The unwanted transfer of printing ink from a printed sheet to a surface facing it. Not be be confused with Offset.

show through
The degree to which printing is visible through paper due to the low opacity of the paper.

side perf
A perforated line running down the side of a continuous business form, usually 12/13mm in from each side of the form.

single part
A form which has onlhy one leaf of paper.

smoothness
The surface smoothness of paper is measured by the Bendtsen smoothness test. The test measures the amount of air escaping between an annular ring and the material surface, and results are measured in ml/min. Papers having a value higher than 50 are usually referred to as Matt, below 50 as Silk (sometimes called Satin or Velvet.)

sprocket (hole)
The line of holes at each side of a continuous form to feed it through output printer devices.

strike-through
The effect seen on the back of a sheet of paper due to excess penetration of printing ink or vehicle into or through the paper.

tack
The property which renders a film of printing ink sticky to the touch. It is governed by viscosity and adhesion.

thermal paper
Thermal papers are high technology products. The base paper is first pre-coated and then treated with a special emulsion containing heat-sensitive modifiers, co-reactants, pigments and colour formers. The heat from a thermal head (eg in a fax machine) melts the modifier, which in turn dissolves the co-reactant which allows the colour formers and pigments to mix, producing a high-contrast image on ...

toner
Chemical used to create an image in photocopying and laser printing.

uv varnish
A varnish applied after printing, either as an overall finish to give a high gloss finish, or applied as a 'spot' varnish to certain previously printed images, then cured using ultra violet light.

vegetable parchment
Paper that has been modified by the action of sulphuric acid, to give it a continuous texture, an increased surface hardness and a high degree of resistance to penetration by organic liquids and particularly fats, oils and greases. The structure also confers on the paper resistance to disintegration by water, even at boiling point.

void hickey
A spot appearing as an inkless hole in a printed image.

waffling
Deformation of a sheet caused by excessive ink tack.

watermark
A deliberate design or pattern in paper which is visible when viewed by transmitted light or against a contrasting background, made by a dandy roll at the wet end of the papermaking machine.

wet on wet
The superimposing of successive colours while the printed colour is still wet, in one pass through a printing machine.

work and tumble
Printing one side of a sheet, then turning the sheet over, retaining the same sidelay edge but reversing the front and back edges, and using the same printing plate.

work and turn
Printing one side of a sheet, then turning the sheet over, retaining the same front edge but moving the sidelay edge of the sheet to the other side of the press, and sing the same printing plate.

wove paper
Paper first made as early as 1754 by forming it on a mould with a cover made from woven wire cloth, hence the name. The paper has an even opacity and is a type in common use today. The term is usually applied to stationery grades which are usually either 'wove' or 'laid'.

wrinkles
Creases in paper caused by uneven moisture absorption.

zahn cup
A type of cup used for the measurement of the viscosity of an ink by measuring the time taken for ink to empty through a small hole in the base of the cup.