Artwork
All original type, photographs, illustrations, and digital files intended for publication.

Author's Alteration (AA)
A code name for a change made by you, the buyer, once a job is already at the printer's. You can be charged for these changes.

Base color
The first color used as a background on which other colors are printed.

Bleed
Pictures or text that extend to the edge of the page without leaving a margin. To get a "bleed," you have to print the image on a larger paper and then trim the paper down to size.

Blueline
A proof where all colors, perforations and scorings show as blue images on white paper. Used to evaluate image and page geometry inexpensively.

Bond
A writing or printing paper that weighs 50 grams or more and is treated with a glue-like substance to make it stiffer and shinier.

CMYK
Refers to the basic printing process colors - cyan, magenta, yellow, black - with K standing for black.

Camera-ready art
Artwork or type that is fully ready to be printed, especially according to the technical requirements of the printing process being used.

Character
All the letters, punctuation marks, accent marks, and numbers in a particular font or type.

Complementary colors
Colors directly opposite each other on the color wheel, such as blue and orange, or red and green. Such pairs contain one primary and one secondary color (made up of two primary colors), so together each pair has all three primary colors.

Clipping region
As set by the printer, this is the unprintable space around the edge of the paper.

Coated paper
A paper treated to give it a smooth, shiny surface for quality printing. Designated as C1S for coated one side, or C2S for coated two sides.

Color separations
The division of a multicolored original into the basic printing colors of yellow, magenta, cyan and black.

Copy
The written text to be printed. Sometimes also used to refer to the artwork.

Corn starch
Fine dust sprinkled on sheets as they come off the press, which dries the ink and prevents smudging.

Cover stock
A term used by paper manufacturers for a heavy paper that is suitable for catalogs and other folders. Cover stock can come in "coated" which has a smooth surface, or "uncoated" in its original rough surface.

Cropping
Taking out parts or edges of an image so you can enlarge or better frame the rest of the image for printing.

Digital Printing
A new kind of printing process particularly good for short-run jobs that need fast turnaround times. Digital printing does not use film but digital imaging technology instead. It's still working its way into the mainstream.

Dots per inch (dpi)
The measurement of resolution for page printers, photo type setting machines and graphics screens. Graphics screens usually reproduce 60 to 72 dpi, most page printers 300 dpi, and typesetting systems 1,000 dpi.

Dummy
A mock-up of a proposed publication design including all the pages fastened together, and often containing art and type taken from other printed materials.

Electrostatic printing
Similar to photocopying, electrostatic printing is good for very short printing runs.

Embossing
Using a special printing process to make an impression into thick, cover stock over printed type or a design. The impression may be concave or convex. Blind embossing is pressing the design in an unprinted surface.

Engraving
A type of printing process that produces the sharpest images of all. The image feels indented if you run your fingers over the back of the sheet.

Finishing
The final steps of the printing process after the actual printing is complete. Includes folding, collating, hole drilling, scoring, and binding.

Flexographic Press
A process used to print materials such as plastic bags. These presses use rubber plates with printed areas raised in relief.

Flop
Reversing the direction a picture or typeset word is facing. Sometimes called a "reading turn."

Flush left
Aligning copy along the left margin.

Flush right
Aligning copy along the right margin.

Four-color process
Printing in full color using four color separation negatives in the basic printing colors of yellow, magenta, cyan and black. Separating and screening the primary colors red, yellow, blue and black from full-color originals, and printing magenta (for red), cyan (for blue), yellow and black to create the illusion of full-color.

Ganging
When a printer runs a variety of different jobs together for more efficient production.

Gravure Printing
A high-quality printing technique that uses direct contact between an etched copper plate and the paper. This technique is rather expensive because the plate has a relatively high cost. However, it is the best way to print high quality, large volume materials such as brochures and annual reports.

Gripper margin
Unprinted space allowed for the printing press to grip the sheet. This should be a minimum of 3/8 inch.

Gutter
The space between the printed area and the binding. Similar to margins.

Half tone
A continuous-tone photograph reduced to tiny dots of various sizes, that when printed, give the illusion of continuous tones.

Impressions
The total number of printed pages produced by the printer.

Insert
A printed piece designed to be placed into an already printed magazine or newspaper.

JPG or JPEG
A type of compression format for photographs that use full color, although some detail can be lost in the process. Short for Joint Photographics Experts Group.

Laid
Paper which shows thick and thin lines at right angles to each other, made by the wires used in the paper making process. Usually considered high quality.

Landscape
An image or page in which the width used is greater than the height. Also refers to the orientation of pages, tables or illustrations that are printed horizontally or "sideways." Also see portrait.

Layout
Shows how text and illustrations will be printed in relation to each other on the page.

Logo
A specially designed company name that's considered part of a corporate image.

Margins
The non-printing areas of the page.

Matte finish
A dull surface.

Mechanical
A board or paper containing all camera-ready elements.

Nudge
To make small, precise adjustments in the placement of objects on a page.

Offset Lithography
A popular printing method offered by almost every printer. Used to print any variety of different textured materials, this process uses ink economically and requires little time to set up the press.

Pantone Matching System (PMS)
A popular color matching system used by the printing industry to print spot colors (colors that can be reproduced with only their own ink) but not for process colors, which need a combination of the four inks, CMYK. Each PMS color has its own name or number that helps you make sure that your colors are the same each time you print, even if your monitor displays a different color or if you change printing services.

Perfect Binding
Most often found in paperback books, this binding process uses glue to hold the pages in place. During this process, the left edge of each sheet is roughened, and then glue is applied. A cover is then placed over the pages, keeping everything in place.

Pica
A unit of measurement, approximately 1/6 inch, used in commercial art.

Pixel
The basic square unit of screen images. Screen images usually have 72 pixels per inch.

Plates
Printing plates are molds or cylinders used by the printing press to imprint materials with ink. They can be made in a variety of substances, ranging from metal to rubber or paper.

Portrait
An image or page in which the height is greater than the width. Also refers to the orientation of pages, tables and illustrations that are printed vertically or "upright." Also see landscape.

PostScript
A type of high quality language developed by Adobe Systems to describe pages independent of their resolution. The current standard in the industry, it is widely supported by both hardware and software vendors.

Primary colors
Cyan (blue), magenta (red) and yellow. These three colors when mixed together with black will produce a reasonable reproduction of all other colors.

Printer's Error (PE)
A code name for a mistake made by the printer while typesetting or correcting your copy. You shouldn't get charged if the copy needs to be changed as a result of printer error.

Proof
A page of typeset copy to check for corrections.

Ragged
Lines of type that don't start or end at the same position as the rest.

Resolution
Measured in dots per inch (dpi), resolution measures the quality of output in typesetting. The greater the number of dots per inch, the smoother and less jagged the appearance of the typeface or the image.

Scale
The ability to reduce or enlarge an image. To avoid distortion, some programs can maintain the ratio between width and height when you scale the image.

Scoring
This process involves partially cutting through cardboard so it will fold more neatly.

Screen Printing
A printing method often used for non-flat goods. This method is best equipped to print on items such as mugs and clothing. Also known as silk screening, this process forces ink through a screen, like a stencil pattern.

Signature
A group of images that appear on a printing plate. The signature is arranged in such a way that the pages will appear in the right order after they are folded and trimmed.

Spot color
If your project only uses one, two or three colors - including black - you'll want to use spot color process. This uses custom mixed inks to reproduce specific colors (like Pantone colors) rather than a full-color process used to reproduce photographs through color separations.

Tagged Image File Format (TIFF)
A common format for interchanging digital information, generally associated with grayscale or bitmap data.

Thermography
A print finishing process that produces a raised image. This process dusts a previously printed image with a powder before the image's ink has been allowed to dry. Applying heat makes the powder and the ink fuse and form a raised image.

Typeface
The complete set of characters that form a family in a particular design or style. Originally referred to the raised surface.

Typeset
The type style and size of words must be set and composed into columns and pages.

Typesetting
Words must be typeset before they can be printed on a commercial printing press, that is, their type style and size must be set and composed into columns and pages. Traditionally done manually or mechanically, typesetting is now mainly digital.

Web press
Designed for large volume jobs of over 200,000 impressions, web presses use a continuous roll of paper. They tend to be difficult and expensive to set up, but are very fast once they are running.

Weight
The degree of boldness or thickness of a letter, font or paper. For paper, it's usually given in terms of grams per square meter.

Widow
An undesirable layout where the last line of a paragraph is carried over to the next column, or a single word carries over to the last line of a paragraph.

Wove
A finely textured paper with a cloth-like appearance and no visible wire marks, unlike laid paper.

WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get)
(pronounced "wizzywig") A term used to describe systems that preview full pages on the screen with text and graphics. The final result can vary slightly because of differences in the resolution of the computer screen and the page printer.

X-height
The height of the main body of a typeface, measured by the height of its letter 'x,' without measuring any ascending or descending elements. Also called body height.