Industry Terms

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A.A. (Author's alterations) When hand-written or typed manuscript is given to a typesetter, all corrections made to that copy after the typesetter has entered it into his or her composing equipment are considered author's alterations.They are chargeable to the author, generally at a per hour rate, and are in excess of the original price quotation.
A/D Converter Mechanism or software to convert an analog signal to a digital signal.
A4 ISO paper size - 210mm x 297mm (8 1/4" x 11 11/16), most commonly used for letterheads. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) has established Standards for paper sizes based on the metric system (millimeters).The standards have been grouped into three different series of requirements. The "A-series" is for general printing.
Abrasion Resistance The level of resistance to withstand repeated rubbing and scuffing.
Abrasiveness The level wear, resulting from friction, that paper, ink and coatings cause on dies, cutting blades, plates, etc.
Absorbency Papers ability to absorb liquids.
Abstract A concise summation of information from written material, i.e. books, articles, or text.
Accelerated Aging A technique of testing longevity of paper by exposing it to a specific environment.
Accordion Fold A term for two or more parallel folds that result in the sheet opening like a fan. Accordion folds are used on products such as brochures and maps.
Accumeter Gluer/moistener A unit for applying water and glue in a binding operation. The web roll is moistened to prevent wrinkles and glue is used to hold the printed signatures together.
Acetate A clear, plastic sheet used on mechanicals to prepare an overlay for art or type that, for example, will print in an additional color. Acetate is also used for overhead transparency printing.
Achromatic Having no color or hue. Material that is white, gray and black.
Acid-free Paper A paper that lacks acid or acid-producing chemicals and because of the absence of this, the paper is more environmentally sound and is more stable over long periods of time.
Acidity The amount of acid contained in paper. The acidity is measured by a pH factor from 0 to 14. The neutral point being 7, 0 to 7 is acid and 7 to 14 is alkaline.
Acrobat Software developed by Adobe for creating and displaying Portable Document Format (PDF) files. It can capture formatting information from many publishing applications. This makes it possible to send a formatted document to a computer screen or printer and have it look exactly the way in which it was created. You can also add annotations.
Acrobat Capture An Adobe plug-in which utilizes Optical Character Recognition (OCR) to convert paper originals into a text-searchable PDF document as it is scanned.
Acrobat Distiller Adobe software which enables a user to create Portable Document Format (PDF) files from desktop publishing and PostScript files.
Acrobat PDF Writer Adobe software designed to convert documents into Portable Document Format (PDF) files.
Acrobat Reader Adobe software which allows Portable Document Format (PDF) files to be viewed.
Across the Grain Perpendicular to the direction of the grain in the paper. (Against the Grain).
Acrylate Resins A copolymer used in the formulation of adhesives, UV inks and coatings.
Acrylic A chemical term for thermoplastic resins whose make up is based on acrylic acid and its derivatives.
Acrylic Based Adhesive A pressure sensitive adhesive that is made up of high strength, acrylic polymers. A solvent or emulsion system can be used in the application of this adhesive.
Acrylic Emulsion A water based latex made up of acrylic polymers. Acrylic emulsion is used in making adhesives and coatings.
Acrylic Ink An ink which contains acrylic polymers. Acrylic ink is used to print on some plastics and other substrates. Works well on applications that are going to be exposed to the outdoors.
Actinic Light Specific light rays which cause chemical changes in photosensitive products. It is used in hardening plate coatings in photo-graphic plates.
Actual Basis Weight (actual weight) The real weight of a given amount of paper (as opposed to basis weight).
Actual Value Shipment A shipment insured for the actual value of the material shipped rather than the amount specified by Government regulation.
Additive Color Using the three primary colors of light (red, green and blue) and adding them in combinations to form colored images as viewed on computer and video monitors. By adding red and green light, each at 100% intensity, yellow is created; by adding blue and green light, each at 100% intensity, cyan is created; and, by adding red and blue light, each at 100% intensity, magenta is created. By adding all three colors of light (red, green and blue), each at 100% intensity, white light is created.
Additive Primaries In referring to color, the three primary colors of white light (red, green and blue) that when mixed in the various proportions, produce any color. When 100% of the primaries are combined, white light is produced.
Address Change Service A service provided by the USPS that provides change-of-address information to mailers who participate in the service. The information is sent electronically to the list processors and used to update addresses on computerized mailing lists.
Adhere To stick or bond two surfaces together with an adhesive.
Adhesion Test Any method of tesing the adhesion strength of an adhesive.
Adhesion, Peel The amount of force required to remove a pressure sensitive material, using a specfic angle and speed, from the surface it was applied.
Adhesive A substance that is sticky, which when applied to an object it allows that object to adhere to another.
Adhesive Coated Paper Paper that has some type of adhesive applied to one side.
Adhesive Strike-Through The penetration of the adhesive through the facestock of a pressure sensitive label.
Adhesive, Pressure Sensitive It is called pressure sensitive because when the adhesive comes in contact with a surface and pressure is applied to the label, the adhesive will allow the facestock to stick.
Adhesive, Removable A removable label can be removed from the substrate without pieces remaining on the surface. Depending on its level of tack, a removable label can damage the surface of some materials, such as wood and suede. After a period of time or exposure to weather, the removable label will become permanent.
Adobe Type Manager (ATM) An operating system component which allows the display of Type 1 fonts in any size on a computer screen.
Aesthetic The qualities pertaining to the beauty of the image that has been printed.
Affixed Products Affixed products are the combination of two products, one attached to the other, which acts as a carrier. The carrier can be either a continuous, unit set, or cut sheet product. The attached product is "blown-on" or "tipped-on" and fastened to the carrier. Some of the types of products that can be affixed are cards, labels, forms, envelopes and coins.
After-Tack The tack after ink has apparently dried.
Against the Grain Perpendicular to the direction of the grain in the paper. (Across the Grain).
Agate Type that is 5 1/2 point, traditionally used for the classified ads in newspapers. 14 agate lines equal an inch.
Aggressive Permanent Adhesive An adhesive used when a general purpose permanent is not strong enough. It has more initial tack and superior adhesion strength. Also called extra permanent.
Airbrushing A method used to retouch photographs and create continuous tone images by the use of a pen shaped tool that sprays out a fine mist of ink or paint. This type of retouching can also be done electronically on a computer using software that has airbrushing capabilities.
Air-Drying Method of drying paper by circulating it with hot air, so there is no tension or restraint on the paper. This gives the paper a harder, and rougher finish.
Albumen Plate An offset printing plate that is made from photographic negatives and used for large printing runs.
Alcohol A colorless volatile, flammable, water-mixable liquid used in the fountain solution of the printing press to reduce surface tension of water.
Aliasing The pixelated or stair-step appearance of slanted or curved lines on low-resolution, computer-generated images; also called jaggies. Ragged edges on computer-generated elements are less visible when output on a high-resolution output device.
Alignment To arrange letters of a line of type side by side in exact measure. To arrange printed pages so that they register equally with facing pages and their reverse sides.
Alignment Marks A preprinted impression used as a guide in positioning input data so as to be in exact alignment.
Alkaline Paper Paper that has a minimum pH of 7.5. The paper is made with a synthetic alkaline size and an alkaline filler like calcium carbonate.
Alkaline Resistance Ability of paper to resist stain or discoloration when brought into contact with alkaline substances like soap and adhesives.
All Over Coat Carbon paper that has the carbon coating covering the entire surface. Also referred to as full coated carbon.
All Rights The term used to designate the rights of a printed work.
Alley On a document that has mutiple columns, it is the space between the columns. Also called the gutter.
Alpha Pulp Highly refined wood pulp with exceptional paper making qualities.
Alphabet Length The measure in points of the length of the alphabet in lower-case.
Alum A chemical (often called aluminum potassium sulfate) used to prevent paper from sticking to presses.
Aluminum Plate An aluminum press plate used for offset printing.
AM (Amplitude Modulation) Halftone screening that has dots of uneven size with equal spacing between dot centers.
Amberlith A transparent orange material applied to a clear acetate sheet. It photographs as opaque so it can be used to block out areas on a flat that should not appear on a particular negative or plate. It is also used to add cut out areas to a flat that can have an image or halftone negative placed in the cut out to be exposed to the plate. The cut out area is manually cut into the orange transparent material and then the material is peeled off from the acetate sheet, leaving a clear opening. The cut out area can also be used to expose the shape of the cut out, as a solid or with a screen placed behind it, directly to the plate to manually add an image to the plate. Used for such purposes as adding screens to the image or a color to a logo. Copyright 1999-2007 - Tecstra Systems Corporation/PrintingTips.com - All Rights Reserved © 2007 International Paper Company. All rights reserved. Legal Statement and Disclaimers
American National Standards Institute ANSI is a non-profit organization that provides administrative support to standards development activities within the United States. It is the sole U.S. member body to the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and is the organization though which all official U.S. input to the ISO takes place.
Analog Proofing A process or method to stimulate printing using either on-press proofing presses and production presses, or an off-press proofing device.
Anchor Tags Hyperlinks in HTML documents that can be clicked to jump from one page to another.
Angle Bar A metal bar laid horizontally at a 45 degree angle from the direction of the press; used to turn the web when feeding from the side or to bypass the former in ribbon folding. Often filled with air and perforated to reducefriction from web travel.
Angstrom A unit of length; one ten millionth of a millimeter. Primarily used to express electromagnetic wavelengths.
Aniline Dyes Any of a large numbers of synthetic dyes used in printing inks; usually obtained from coal tar.
Aniline Printing Letterpress printing that uses ink that contains solvents that evaporate quickly. The plates used for this process are generally made of rubber. This type of printing is used for gummed tapes and bread wrappers.
Anilox Inking A two-roll inking system used in the flexography process with a smooth fountain roll that transfers ink to an etched metal or ceramic coated metal roll with cells of fixed size and depth that transfer the ink to the plate.
Animated GIF A file containing a series of GIF graphics or pictures that are displayed in sequence on a Web page, giving the appearance of a moving picture. The timing and looping can be adjusted to created different effects.
Animator An artist who draws animated cartoons.
Annotation A feature on many digital cameras that allows the image to contain text such as the date and time, watermarking, image notations, audio notations, and stylus notations. These are a few of the annotation features currently available.
Announcements A card or piece of stationery containing a formal announcement of an event, such as a wedding.
Anti-aliasing In a digitized image, diagonal lines are not a true diagonal line on the monitor, but rather they are a series of horizontal and vertical line segments that simulate a diagonal. At lower resolutions, this will produce a stair-stepped effect known as aliasing. Anti-aliasing reduces this effect, helping to produce smoother diagonal lines by partially filling in or blurring the hard edges.
Anti-halation backing A coating applied to fiber to prevent blurring caused by a reflection of light through the emulsion.
Anti-offset or Set-off Spray A dry spray of thinly powdered starch used on press to inhibit wet ink from transferring from the top of one sheet to the bottom of the next sheet.
Antique Finish Paper with a natural rough surface finish, mostly used in book and cover papers, usually a natural or cream-white color.
Antistatic Coatings A coating that is applied to one or both sides of a material to reduce the build up of electrostic. Lowering the amount of electrostic in a material aides in the ease of additional posessing.
Aperture An opening, usually circular that limits the amount of light passing through the lens of a camera.
Apochromatic A color corrected lens at three wave lengths.
Apparent Density Weight per unit volume, by dividing basis weight by caliper.
Apparent Dot Area The dot area of a printed halftone.
Appendix Supplementary material at the end of a book, article, or text, usually of an explanatory statistical or bibliographic nature.
Applicator A device used to apply labels faster and more accurately. The applicator could be a hand held model or a piece of automated equipment used for high speed application.
APR (Automatic Picture Replacement) The automactic replacement of a low resolution image by a high resolution image.
Apron (1) A blank space at the binding edge of a fold-out, usually on a French fold, which allows folding and tipping without interfering with the copy. (2) Leader sheet attached to the beginning of a continuous form, usually to enablethe first consecutively numbered form to be printed.
Aqueous Coating A water based coating which is applied in the same manner as ink. It is used to protect and enhance the printed piece.
Arabic Numerals The characters 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, in general European use since the 12th century.
Arc lamp A lamp used in platemaking in which the light source of high intensity is an electric arc, usually between carbon rods.
Archival Paper Acid-free, permanent lasting paper.
Argon Laser A very intense blue laser that peaks at 470 nanometers.
Art All copy used in the pre-press process of a printing job.
Art Director A person who directs the use of visuals and art in the production of printed information.
Art Paper High quality papers both uncoated and coated used in printing.
Art Prep Preparation of copy and artwork.
Artificial Parchment Paper produced from an unruly formed fibrous structure.
Artificial Watermark An image applied to the paper that is visible when viewed at an angle. Artificial watermarks are applied after the paper manufacturing process. They can be applied by the paper manufacturer or by the printer. An artificial watermark can be seen from one side only. It is generally applied to the back side but can be applied to the front side also. The watermark is achieved by printing the image in opaque white ink, transparent ink or by using varnish. Also referred to as a simulated watermark.
Artist's Illustration Board A heavy weight board suitable for pencil, pen, or water color, used by artists and other illustrators.
Artwork Photographs, paintings, drawings, lettering and other materials used in printing to enhance the appearance of the final product.
Ascenders The tops of lower case letters such a b, d, h, t that extend above the other letters.
ASCII A standard file type for text.
Ash Content The remainder after combustion of paper at a high temperature, expressed as a percentage of the original weight of the sample.
Aspect Ratio 1. In digital cameras, the image sensor resolution calculation which provides the dimension of the digital image or the image output to print. 2. In monitors, the ratio of the number of horizontal pixels to the number of vertical pixels displayed on the screen. 3. In postal regulations, the length of the mailing piece divided by the height of the mailing piece, the length being parallel to the mailing address. 4. In regard to barcode symbols, it is the height to width ratio.
Asphaltum Dark colored bituminous substances used in the protection of offset plate images.
Aspherical Lens A glass camera lens that has a curved surface.
Assemble Computer language which describes the process used to change the programmers code into working machine code.
Assemble Draw The gathering of signatures together for the purpose of assembling a completed book.
Assembling Compiling materials of art, type, and various images into galleys for the initial proof stage.
Assembly Sheet A project control record used in camera and plate departments with all instructions for complete production of the printing plates.
Asynchronous Transfer Mode A network standard for the high speed transferral of data using packets or cells of a fixed size.
Attachment The output of a computer application program, such as a graphics file, that is appended to a mail message.
Authoring The process of developing documents for use on the Web.
Auxiliary Roll Stand An auxiliary web stand that is used to reduce press down time. It can be mounted for use while the other is unwinding.