Printing Industry Terms Printing industry terms refer to the words that professionals and printing staff use to complete daily functions related to preparing documents for publication. A standard glossary of printing industry terms will distinguish between different types of binding, paper, printing and production options. A list of terms that includes references to how to develop color combinations and prepare copy are important to publishing companies in the business of producing graphics. Printing industry terms also include references to preparation of printing press equipment.
Paper o
Publishing and printing companies use different types of paper to accomplish their tasks. Heavier paper is more durable, and usually more elegant. "Book" paper, which usually goes inside a brochure, is lighter than "Cover." Both are sold in weights anywhere between "60 pound," to "100 pound" for the typical brochure. Printing companies use "dylux" to create a "blueline," a photographic proof. Companies also use other types of papers to include "matte finish," which is a type of dull paper and "gloss," a shinier paper that reflects light.
Copy o
Publishers prepare copy, or material, for printing. This includes imposing images and reformatting them to fit within a space. A document will endure different phases of the printing process. For example, the "galley proof" is a text-only copy without graphics; it is submitted to another department for desktop layout. On the other hand, a "camera-ready copy" refers to how the document will look as printed. Therefore, publishers urge authors, copy editors and typesetters to proofread and ensure that each page and corresponding graphic is free of mistakes and that the content is accurate. Printing industry terms for copy also include "crop," "hard copy" and "imprint."
Printing o
Printing presses not only prepare documents for printing, but also set up the equipment to process documents. For example, the printing industry term "makeready" refers to a process that production staff follow to prepare the press to print documents. Next, inputting commands to develop the right color combinations for the graphics within the document is also a part of the production process. There is a "four-color process" in which production staff combine four basic colors to create color pictures suitable for printing. In addition, "density" refers to how dark an image is;
that's why publishers use a "densitometer" to measure an ink's density. Other related printing industry terms include process colors such as cyan, magenta, yellow and black. These are basic colors used for documents processed through the printing press, and are usually shortened to "cmyk." K is the letter for black, to avoid confusion from B for blue.
Binding o
Binding is the last step in the production process. Publishers prefer popular binding methods such as "perfect bind" and "saddle stitch." Binding refers to fastening sheets of a complete document by means of wire, glue or thread. For example, companies that use perfect binding glue the edges of multiple sheets of paper to a cover; perfect binding is typically suitable for telephone books, technical manuals and commercial magazines. In contrast, saddle stitch binding refers to the method of staff applying staples at the seam of the publication. Printing presses use saddle stitching to bind booklets, magazines and direct mailers. The process requires page numbers of a document to be in multiples of four; this allows the publisher to construct a folded booklet. Another term, "Eurobind," allows printing companies to produce books that lay flatter than their counterparts. Printing industry terms for binding also include references to "spine," "case bind" and "wire-o-binding."
More Resources
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