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This is a basic list of words that may help understand printing terminology.
Full Service Print Center
Glossary
This is a basic list of words that may help understand printing terminology.
| Editable File: | A data file that can be re-opened using ordinary software and its contents changed. |
| Effluent: | The liquid discharge or waste products of the papermaking process. Often includes a small amount of suspend solids and dissolved chemicals. Because most modern paper mills now contain wastewater treatment plans, effluent now can be discharged into rivers. |
| Electronic printing: | Digital printing. |
| Emulsion: | The coating of light sensitive material on a piece of film. The dull side of a negative. |
| EPS: | (Encapsulated PostScript) A graphic file format developed by Adobe Systems that is used for PostScript graphic files that are to be incorporated into larger PostScript documents. This format offers flexibility because it includes both a low-resolution view file and a high resolution PostScript image description. |
| Estimate: | The process used by the printer to calculate the project for the print buyer. This information must contains the basic parameters of the project including size, quantity, colors, bleeds, photos etc. |
| Expanded: | When the set width of a font has been lengthened, the font will be wider allowing fewer characters to fit on any given line length. Fonts should be expanded by using a true "expanded" version of a typeface. Expanding type by using the "attributes" selection screen of a page layout program increases the risk that the outputting or DTP equipment will not recognize the font or ignore it completely. |
| Export: | Transfer information from one system or program to another. |
| File Format: | The structure of a file that defines the way it is stored and laid out on the screen or in print. The format can be fairly simple and common such as files that are stored as ASCII text, or quite complex and include various types of control instructions and codes used by programs and by pr8inters and other devices. Examples of file formats are PICT, TIFF, EPS and RTF. |
| File Server: | AW file storage device on a local area network that is accessible to all users on the network. Unlike a disk server, which appears to the user as a remote disk drive, a file server is a sophisticated device that not only stores files it manages them and maintains order as network users request files and make changes to them. |
| File: | A complete, named collection of information, such as a program, a set of data used by a program or a user-created document. A file is the basic unit of storage that enables a computer to distinguish one set of information from another. |
| Film: | A transparent material coated with a light sensitive substance. |
| Film Negative: | A piece of film with a reversed image of the original, in which dark areas appear white, and vice versa. The film negative is the image carrier used to produce printing plates. |
| Film Positive: | This piece of film is the opposite image of the film negative. Dark areas from the original are dark and light areas are light. |
| Film Proofs: | Film proofs are created using the Film which has been output on an imagesetter or exposed in a darkroom. They are highly accurate representations of what the final printed product will look like and are given to clients for final review, approval, and "sign-off" before the printing plates are made and the order is put on the press. Some examples of film proofs are Dylux, Silverprint, Blueline, Chromalin, WaterProof, Color Key and Matchprint. |
| Filters: | Processing effects used to manipulate photographic images to control color or contrast or to add special effects. |
| Finished size: | The exact dimension of the printed piece when completely folded. |
| Flat size: | The exact dimension of the printed piece when laid flat. |
| Fold marks: | Markings at top edges that show where folds should occur. |
| Folding dummy: | A sample of the final printed product, folded and assembled. Can be made to actual size or in miniature. |
| Folio: | Pagination; the system of numbering pages. A blind folio is a page that does not have its page number; a drop folio is a page with its number at the bottom of the page. |
| Font medium: | The form a font takes - metal, photographic, or digital. |
| Font: | A set of characters. In the world of metal type, this means a given alphabet, with all its accessory characters, in a given size. In the world of digital type, it is the character set itself or the digital information encoding it. |
| Footer: | The information about a publication, such as its title, date, issue or page number is a footer when is consistently appears at the bottom of each page of the document. |
| Footnote: | A footnote is a numbered passage which amplifies specific information on the page and provides direction about how to find sources or related reading. |
| Format: | Size, Style shape, layout, organization or typography. Format is a general term whose meaning depends on context. |
| Formatting: | For documents, the elements of style and presentation that are added through the use of margins, indents, and different sizes, weights and styles of type. |
| Forms: | A form normally denotes one press plate. The term comes from the days of letterpress printing when a page consisted of metal lines / or letters. The page was placed in proper position in a frame called a chase and "locked up" to create a "form". |
| Four Color process: | the method of printing process color using separations and the four colored inks: cyan, magenta, yellow and black. |
| Fourdrinier Paper Machine: |
A papermaking machine invented by a Frenchman, Nicolas Louis Robert in 1798, developed in England by Brian Donkin for Henry and Sealy Fourdrinier, but not placed into operation until 1804. The Fourdrinier Paper Machine was the first papermaking machine to make continuous paper. Prior to this machine, paper was made in single separate sheets. |
| FPO: | For Position Only. Refers to images used as placeholders in a document. |
| French fold: | Two right angle folds creating four pages. |