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Printing
Terminology
ART
PAPER OR BOARD
This is the name for any paper or board that has a smooth, polished,
clay coating. The paper may be gloss, satin, silk or matt finish. Coated
papers are used for better quality work and are almost always used for
full colour work and jobs with photographs on them. Art papers are usually
only available in white, so any colours or shades of colour are printed
on with the other colours, usually by four colour process.
BLEED
This just means any area of ink (even a line) that “runs off”
the edge of a print job. Thus, “bleeds off” means that the
job was printed on larger size paper and cut down to the finished size.
BOARD
The printers name for card. The thickness is usually measured in microns.
A micron is one thousandth of a millimetre. Business cards are usually
on 340 micron board. Reply cards would usually go on 280 micron or 230
micron board. An uncoated board, such as a filing card is called a pulp
board. They are available in white or tints (pastel colours). Coated
boards (art boards) are usually only available in white.
BOND
Paper made from wood pulp, without any coating, as opposed to coated
paper such as art paper. Copier paper is a bond. Thickness is measured
by weight in grams per square metre, rather than the actual caliper
of the stock. Available in weights from 60 gsm to 120 gsm. and in white
or tinted.
CLOSE
REGISTER (or TIGHT REGISTER)
This means that the colours on the job are very close to each other
and that the accuracy of their positions, relative to each other, are
critical. Loose register, sometimes called commercial register is where
a slight movement (of say one millimetre or so) between the relative
positions of the colours would not matter.. Tight register work somethimes
costs more, as a different type of process or printing machine may be
used.
FOUR
COLOUR WORK or FOUR COLOUR PROCESS
The printers name for full colour printing. The actual colours used
are Cyan, Yellow, Magenta and Black, from which almost any shade of
any colour can be reproduced. Also known as process work or four colour
process. Full colour designs seen on a computer screen are displayed
in three colours, red, green and blue (RGB). This means that the finished
printed work will often look considerably different when printed in
the four process colours.
HALFTONE
Printers name for a photograph, which has to be turned into a fine dot
pattern before being printed. This process is called SCREENING.
LAID
A method of making paper from a high rag content pulp. Laid lines in
the paper and a watermark make laid paper popular for letterheads. Conqueror
is the best known although we can also offer an unwatermarked laid at
a much lower price.
MARBLE
An expensive finish available in paper (90gsm) or board. Marlmarque
is the most popular make. Usually used for short run invitations or
certificates due to the high cost of the material.
NCR
This stands for No Carbon Required and is the popular name for self-carbonising
paper. The top sheet is available in light or medium weight. The bottom
sheet is available as a thin board. There is only one weight of the
middle sheets. A range of pastel tints are available for all sheets,
although board bottom sheet is usually only available in white.
NUMBERING
The addition of a unique sequential number to each sheet. Numbers are
printed on to the stock by a different process than the rest of the
sheet and in our case are always in red ink.
PANTONE
MATCHING SYSTEM (or PMS for short)
An international method of making sure that all specified colours used
in printing, publicity etc are very similar. Colours are specified as
numbers, i.e. PMS 032, PMS 300 etc., sometimes followed by the letter
U or C. The letters simply mean how the same ink colour looks on either
uncoated stock or coated stock as the colours often look totally different
on each.
PERFORATIONS
The tiny holes or slits that enable a sheet to be pulled out of a book
(as in a cheque book) A perforation may be down or across the sheet,
but generally has to go all the way across or down. Occasionally, a
job will appear where the perforation has stopped before the edge. This
costs considerably more to produce and is called a stopped perf.
REVERSED
OUT
White lettering on a solid background. Offset Litho ink is transparent
so offset litho printing cannot use white ink so any white type has
to be made from the paper colour showing through a solid.
SCORING
When printers score, they put a fine crease in a straight line, down
or across a sheet of board. This enables the job to be hand or machine
folded accurately.
SOLID
A large area of ink coverage. A full out solid means that the solid
area extends all over the sheet. Most printers assume a maximum print
area of 25% in any one colour and charge extra for the higher ink and
setting up costs of printing a large solid on a job.
TECHNICAL
ADVICE
Click here to open a printer-friendly technical advice page
TINT
Any area of colour on a print job that is made up of a halftone screen
of one or more of the solid colours used on the job. Tints are expressed
in percentages, i.e. 10%, 20% etc. They are made up of a percentage
of tiny dots of one of the ink colours. Laying tints is an extra cost
on any job. Great care should be taken when selecting tints as they
can often look totally different on the finished job than they did on
the designer’s screen. Dark tints of 50% and more tende to look
much darker on the printed job than on the screen, due to dot gain on
the press.
TINTED
The printers term for coloured paper. Pastel tints are cheaper than
intensive (deep colour) tints.
WASH-UP
Single colour printing machines normally run in black ink. Full colour
machines run in black, magenta, cyan and yellow. The use of any other
colour will incur a wash-up charge, for the time spent in washing down
the rollers and ink ducts to take another ink colour. Very light coloured
inks and metallics cost more because the wash-up takes longer.
WEIGHT
OF PAPER
The bulk of most papers is measured in grams per square metre (gsm).
Although not a measure of thickness, GSM gives an idea of the feel.
Board is usually, although not always, measured in microns which is
a measure of thickness. A 200 micron board is around 160 gsm in weight.
WOVE
A high quality paper made from the same rag-content pulp as laid, only
with a smooth finish. Usually only used for letterheads.
PAPER
SIZES
Printers buy paper in large sheets and cut it to the finished size,
often after the job is printed. This enables a job to be printed twice
or four times on one sheet and cut up afterwards. It also allows for
any BLEED (see above) as printers cannot print right to the edge of
the sheet. It makes sense to try to stick to standard paper sizes. Going
slightly smaller will cost much the same, but by going even slightly
larger than a standard size, you will be spending money on wasted paper.
Standard
Metric Paper Sizes.
A7
105mm x 74mm
A6 148mm x 105mm
A5 210mm x 148mm
A4 297mm x 210mm
A3 420mm x 297mm
A2 594mm x 420mm
In each case, the next larger size is TWICE the shortest dimension of
the last one. In other words, two A5’s will fit on one A4, two
A4’s fit on one A3 etc. This means that 16 A7’s will fit neatly
on an A3 sheet.
Business
cards are usually the same size as a credit card, which is 85mm x 55mm.
Compliment slips are often seen as 1/3rd A4 which is 99mm x 210mm.
Remember
that all sheets can be used either way up. A compliment slip can be
lying down or standing up. This is called PORTRAIT (210mm tall by 99mm
wide) or LANDSCAPE (99mm tall and 210mm wide). The same applies to Business
Cards, Forms, Posters etc. Letterheads are always portrait in format.
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