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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.
| Tab: | A tab adds white space to set off or highlight blocks of copy. |
| Tail: | The descender of a Q or short diagonal stroke of an R. |
| Templates: | Templates are predetermined and saved formats for page layouts. They are designed to be used as a starting point for each successive page or issue. The use of templates saves time and reduces errors in layout formats. |
| Text Only File: | (see ASCII file) |
| TIFF (Tagged Image File Format): | When an image is scanned, it must be saved in a manner which will allow it to be placed, resized and colored within a page layout program. TIFFs are used for photographic and continuous tone image scans." |
| Tiling: | Tiling is the process of positioning lasers or negatives together to create oversized sheets when an output unit does not have the size capabilities available at 100%. Running out portions of a document at 100%, aligning them with each other and taping them together is a common form of tiling. |
| Tint: | A screened, even tone area of a solid color. (see Screen) |
| Toner: | Mechanically pulverized or chemically grown imaging agent used in electrophotography. Consists of plastic resin compound, pigments and additives. |
| Tracking: | Manually adjusting the overall amount of space between letters and words is tracking. Tracking increases and decreases word density and can be used for copyfitting purposes. Adjustment of tracking is often needed with "justified" type to even out the rivers of white space within body copy. Creative tracking can also remove widows, orphans, bad word-breaks, and undesirable hyphenation." |
| Transparent: | Inks that do not block out the colored inks that they print over, but instead blend with them to create intermediate colors. |
| Trapping: | The process of compensating for misregistration on the printing press by printing small areas of overlapping color where objects meet. |
| Trim size: | The final size of one printed image after the last trim is made. |
| Trimming: | Cutting a printed piece to final size. |
| TrueType: | An outline font format that was developed jointly by Apple Computer and Microsoft Corporation. An alternative to Adobe PostScript fonts. |
| Type designer: | A person who designs letterforms intended for eventual manufacture as fonts. Includes designing new faces and redrawing existing faces. |
| Type foundry: | A manufacturer of metal type, or a set group of Digital fonts |
| Type Size: | Type size refers to the height of the letters and numerals and is based on the point system. |
| Typeface or Typestyle: | The features by which a character's design is recognized. Six forms comprise the graphic shapes for Latin languages: uncial, black letter, serif, sans serif, script and decorative; each form contains a number of designs. For example, the serif form contains four designs - Old Style, Transitional, Modern and Slab Serif. |
| Typesetter: | A person who sets type using either hot lead or digital type. Also refers to Desktop Pulishing (DTP). |
| Upper Case: | Words are in upper case when all capital letters are used. |
| Vector Graphics: | The mathematical description used to create lines by defining the start and end points as well as the formula for the line between the two points. Vectors are used to create graphic elements. Vector images can be scaled to any size without image degradation. |
| Virgin fiber: | Wood fiber, or Paper pulp, that has never been recycled. |
| Wash-up: | The procedure of cleaning a particular ink from all of the printing elements (rollers, plate, ink fountain etc.) of a press. |
| Waste paper: | Recycled paper that cannot be used as the surface of a sheet. Often used as the inside layer of a three-layer sheet. |
| Web press: | A printing press that prints on rolls of paper passed through the press in one continuous piece, as opposed to sheets of paper. |
| Wire stitching or stapling: | To fasten together sheets, signatures, or sections with wire staples by one of three 3 methods (saddle stitching, side stitching, and stabbing). |
| WMF: | Windows Metafile Format, a graphics file format used to exchange graphics information between Microsoft Windows applications. |
| Wrap-arounds: | When type is shortened or follows around an illustration, graphic, or photograph, it is called a wrap-around type. |
| WYSIWYG: | The acronym for "what you see is what you get" and is the process of viewing your document on a monitor before it is printed out in laser form or imageset. WYSIWYG software programs have replaced "code-driven" programs of the phototypesetting generation of composition." |
| XML: | Extensible Markup Language, a pared-down version of SGML, designed especially for Web documents. |