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.
Art 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. 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.
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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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