Printing Terms

3D Printing: 3D printers can print 3D shapes and models. Aircraft companies produce parts with 3D printers, and some food companies, such as Hershey's, have created edible 3D food printers.

What should be considered when outsourcing print jobs?

Series A, B and C: These refer to different industry standards of paper sizes. Most countries follow this system, so most paper sizes (eg A1, A2, A3, A4, etc.) are universal worldwide. Don't worry! You don't need to know the details of the different series - this is an industry standard that printers must adhere to.

Absorbency: How much liquid the paper can hold. Before you start printing, it is useful to check the absorbency of your paper. If you use too much ink, the ink will leak and cause the paper to appear wet.

Absorption: When the first inks dry on the surface of the material, this is often referred to as absorption.

Acetate: A thin and flexible sheet of clear plastic often used for coating.

Adhesives: Adhesives are substances used in printing to make objects stick together tightly.

Aqueous Coating: A clear coating used to protect printed parts to create a high-gloss surface that increases durability.

Art Paper: Paper with a smooth glossy surface made by adding a special coating.

Barcodes: A method of representing data in the form of visual and machine-readable information on a scannable, visual surface.

Contract Printing: A technique that is not limited to certain printing products, materials or sizes. This technique is about meeting a company's needs to create something truly unique that cannot be produced elsewhere.

Binding: Binding is used to bind or fasten a book together. Some printers may offer you a service to bind your print jobs.

Bleeding: After the paper is printed, inks may run over the paper's cut marks. This is known as "bleeding".

Handle: A term sometimes used to describe the thickness and feel of a piece of paper.

Caliper: A measure of paper thickness, measured in thousandths of an inch or miles.

Carbon Stable Paper: A simple way to reduce your carbon impact while printing and costs little or nothing to the end user.

Chemical Resistance: The extent to which printed materials will resist reacting with chemicals they come into contact with - ensuring no damage is done.

Coating: To reduce the risk of ink smearing after printing, a special liquid coating can be applied to the paper. It is particularly useful for literature editions.

Color Bars: A test strip printed on the waste portion of a print sheet. It helps to monitor and control the quality of the printed material based on ink density, registration and dot gain.

Color Separation: The process of separating colors into their basic elements.

Color Order: The order in which the inks are printed on the printing machine. Also known as color rotation.

Creep: Refers to the movement or slippage of the margins in the document when pages are folded during the finishing process of a booklet. The amount of slip may vary depending on the thickness of the paper and the number of pages.

Crop Marks: Lines placed on pages to show where to cut the document or printout.

Crossover: An image or rule from a printed page that is moved to the adjacent folded worksheet.

Damping: The process in which water must be applied to the lithographic cliché in a lithography printer before printing.

Debossing: Stamping a design onto the surface of an object or paper with an indentation.

Die cutting: In the printing world A Die refers to a precision, razor-sharp steel blade that allows efficient and uniform creation of multiple parts of the same shape.

Digital Printing: Digital printing using lasers is a fast printing method and is widely used in offices and homes. Ideal for fast and small-scale jobs.

Dot Gain: Term used when dots are printed larger than they should be.

Counterfeit: Before printing a large quantity, it is the norm to print a "dummy" to show the customer a sample of the finished product.

Dust Cover: A removable outer dust cover that covers the front and back of a book, usually made of paper and printed with text and images.

Dye Sublimation: Dye sublimation changes the color of the material instead of giving it colour.

Flexibility: It is the term used for a printed product not to lose its shape when opened.

Embossing: The process of creating raised relief images on paper and other materials. The design will pop out of the paper.

Ending Papers: Used to protect valuable text at the beginning and end of a book and literally holds it together.

Feeder: Equipment used to 'feed' or supply the paper to the printer in the correct position for printing.

Finishing: The finishing touches to a print (for example, cutting cut lines and adding protective shine).

Flexography: A widely used method for printing on rough surfaces such as packaging. Flexo printing uses a flexible embossing plate to print, which prints letters and small text popularly used for labels.

Folds: With fold types such as accordion, door, closed door and French, folds can offer you different options for displaying your documents.

Font: Font refers to the style of the letters used in printing.

Ghosting: In a printed image, another lighter color image in the same print is called ghosting because of the lighter, ghostly surface.

Gray Scale: A strip of gray values ranging from white to black contains shades of gray and is used to reproduce images.

Clamps: Special handles inside the printers that hold the paper in place during printing.

Guillotine: A sharp blade used to accurately cut and trim printed paper.

Hardness: This is a term used for the quality or condition of a printed product to remain 'hard'. That is, the quality does not deteriorate as it is used.

Arrangement: Arrangement of pages in a sequence that is read in succession when the printed page is folded.

Ink Drain: Ink that is inadvertently transferred from a printed sheet to the back of the top sheet when materials are printed and stacked in a stack.

Slippages: Printed pages that are loosely placed in a publication, often blank

Jog: To shuffle finished pages to align for final trimming or binding.

Kerning: In typography, it is the process of adjusting the visual spacing between characters, usually to achieve a more aesthetic result. Laminate: A thin, clear, plastic sheet that is usually applied to thick stock to provide a glossy protective layer against liquids and heavy materials. to use.

LED UV: LED UV is a printing technique that provides a high-level surface. Inks are mixed perfectly and printed on stock (paper, card, etc.). This is then sprayed under LED lights to dry quickly. This helps keep colors sharper and speeds up the entire printing process.

Lithography: Lithographic printing is widely used for high quality image printing. The image is placed on the lithography plate, inked and then printed on paper. It is a fast and trouble-free printing process.

Bound Binding: It is an adhesive that is pushed between the holes during the binding process, which is generally used for publications that need to be durable. It is a stronger way to bind a book to ensure its longevity.

Logotype: A personalized design specific to a company or product.

Lux Paper: It is a stock that suits classical products. This material is an ultra-thick, three-layer board with a colored core running through the middle layer.

Metallic Ink: It is made with reflecting powder metals or pigments to make the text look metallic. The most common colors used are silver and gold.

Monochrome: Black and white or varying shades of a single color (eg different shades of green - green, linden, pear, pine, etc.)

Opacity: The quality of the paper defines its opacity. If it's not opaque enough, your design may appear the other way around.

Original: Before starting any print job, the printer will need the "original", the original image you want to produce.

Overprint: Any additional printing on an area that has already been made.

Pantone Color: A universal color language used by designers, printers and brand owners. This helps to achieve the correct color over and over.

Paper-Over-Board: These are hardcover covers that take a more designed approach, allowing for more creativity when it comes to textures and illustrations.

PPI: Number of pages or pixels per inch.

Printing Defects: If printed using an unsuitable or outdated printing technique, the materials may have minor imperfections that impair the overall appearance or quality.

Process Colors: Process colors are cyan, magenta, yellow and black. The printer combines these base colors to create different colors.

Correction: The best way to avoid costly printing errors. It is important to pay close attention to the proofs you receive to make sure the design, copying, and color are error-free.

PUR Binding: This refers to a binding method that uses a Polyurethane Reactive (PUR) adhesive that creates clean and perfect edges.

Reel: A continuous length of paper wound around a cylinder is often referred to as a paper reel.

Registration: To accurately place an image or text on paper, registration marks are used as reference points to help ensure the print job is correct at every step.

RGB: The Red, Green, and Blue color space that computers use to display images on your screen. An RGB computer file must be converted to CMYK in order to print correctly.

Rotogravure Printing: This printing process uses an engraved rotating roller that rolls the image across the paper. It is used for rotogravure, magazine and newspaper printing.

Runnability: How fast a printer can "run" without making any mistakes is often referred to as printer operability.

Satin Finish: A smooth and soft surface on paper.

Scratch Resistance: Depending on the technique used, the products may be difficult to scratch or damage, as the physical properties will be significantly improved.

Screen Printing: With screen printing, a fine mesh is used to transfer an image to another material. Useful for printing logos on clothing and fabric banners.

Silk Paper: Silk paper is a paper with low surface gloss and provides excellent ink-paper contrast. Colors appear much brighter and more distinct when printed on, making it a better choice for readability.

Solvent Evaporation: During the drying process, the liquid parts of the ink evaporate depending on the printing technology used. If the solvents are evaporated, the pigments remain in place.

Spot Color: This is achieved by actually mixing ink to the color you want in your print project, as opposed to using the CMYK process to achieve it.

Spot Varnish: A way to highlight a specific area of a page by selectively applying varnish.

Stock: This is what gets your printed images and content. It can be paper, card, foil or whatever. It can also drastically change the effect of printed parts.

Thread-stitched: A very strong binding ideal for high-quality, long-lasting publications and publications that need to be opened flat along the spine without splitting.

Tint: It is the process of adding the white color to another color. Thus, when printed, the color will be lighter and more white will shine.

Transparency: This means images or text that are not completely opaque. Make sure you flatten your transparency and spot color to CMYK to avoid printing problems.

Trimming: This is line cutting to produce the finished size. Tile cuts through the overflow area to provide a continuous, sharp edge around a design.

Typo: A typo in the printed text material.

Typography: Everything related to the writing on the printed product. Your printer will want to know the layout, color and style of your text.

Ultraviolet Light: UV light is a form of radiation invisible to the human eye, in an invisible part of the electromagnetic spectrum. It is this light that instantly dries the ink in LED UV printing technology.

UV Curing: A drying method that uses light instead of heat. It is a photochemical process in which high-intensity UV light instantly cures or dries inks, coatings and adhesives.

UV Varnish: A thin coating applied to a printed sheet for protection and appearance. It is dried immediately with UV light.

Varnish: A glossy surface added to a finished printed product to provide extra shine and protection from damage.

Vignette: A drawing in which the background gradually disappears until it blends into the unprinted paper.

Watermark: A logo or design printed on paper. Visible only under light.