Artwork
All original type, photographs, illustrations, and digital files intended for publication.

Accordion Fold
A type of paper folding in which each fold runs in the opposite direction to the previous fold creating a pleated or accordion effect.

Bleed
Pictures or text that extend to the edge of the page without leaving a margin. To get a “bleed,” you have to print the image on a larger paper and then trim the paper down to size.

Bond
A writing or printing paper.

CMYK
Refers to the basic printing process colors – cyan, magenta, yellow, black – with K standing for black.

Coated paper
A paper finishes can be gloss, matte and silk, amongst others. Designated as C1S for coated one side, or C2S for coated two sides.

Collate
To gather sheets or signatures together in their correct order.

Cover stock
A term used by paper manufacturers for a heavy paper that is suitable for catalogs and other folders. Cover stock can come in “coated” which has a smooth surface, or “uncoated” in its original rough surface.

Crop marks
Crop marks are printed cutting lines on a printed sheet of artwork or completed print job. They are there to indicate where the publication should be trimmed.

Die cut
Die cutting is the process whereby shapes are cut out of paper, or other substrates. Designers will generally have to specify a cutting grid, in their page layout or vector drawing program, that the printer will use as a guide for making the Die.

Drill
The actual drilling of holes into paper for ring or comb binding.

Electronic Proof
Sometimes referred to as a “soft proof” or a “digital proof”, it is available normally through email in the form of a pdf.

Finishing
The final steps of the printing process after the actual printing is complete. Includes folding, collating, hole drilling, scoring, and binding.

JPG or JPEG
A type of compression format for photographs that use full color, although some detail can be lost in the process. Short for Joint Photographics Experts Group.

Landscape
An image or page in which the width used is greater than the height. Also refers to the orientation of pages, tables or illustrations that are printed horizontally or “sideways.” Also see portrait.

Large Format Printing
A print that can range from two to more than 15 feet in width. Such printers typically use ink jet technology to print on a variety of output, including premium glossy-coated paper for signs and posters.

Layout
Shows how text and illustrations will be printed in relation to each other on the page.

Logo
A specially designed company name that’s considered part of a corporate image.

Matte finish
A dull surface.

Pantone Matching System (PMS)
A popular color matching system used by the printing industry to print spot colors (colors that can be reproduced with only their own ink) but not for process colors, which need a combination of the four inks, CMYK. Each PMS color has its own name or number that helps you make sure that your colors are the same each time you print, even if your monitor displays a different color or if you change printing services.

Perfect Binding
Perfect binding is the process of binding sheets of a document by roughing the edges at the spine and bonding them with glue to an external cover.

Paperback books and thick documents, such as brochures and larger news-stand magazines are generally perfect bound.Thinner publications, such as trade magazines and journals, are generally saddle stitched.

Perforating
Creating a line of punched dots on a printed sheet so that a part of a sheet can be detached by a user at a later date.

Pixel
The basic square unit of screen images. Screen images usually have 72 pixels per inch.

Proof
A proof is a pre-production “sample” of what your job will look like once it is printed. A “hard proof” is a printed sample normally produced on a high-end laser-jet printer and a “soft proof” or “digital proof” is normally a PDF that can be viewed on your computer screen.

Quick Copy
Usually takes 1-2 days, depending on the quantity of the run and the number of originals.

Ream
500 sheets of paper.

Resolution
Measured in dots per inch (dpi), resolution measures the quality of output in printing. The greater the number of dots per inch, the smoother and less jagged the appearance of the image.

Saddle stitching
A printed document is saddle stitched by stapling its sheets at the fold of the spine, over a mechanical ‘saddle’. Saddled stitching is used for thin magazines, brochures and journals.

Thicker documents often have to be perfect bound.

Spiral Bind
A binding whereby a wire or plastic is spiraled through holes punched along the binding side.

Stock
A term for unprinted paper or other material to be printed.

Tagged Image File Format (TIFF)
A common format for interchanging digital information, generally associated with grayscale or bitmap data.

Typeface
The complete set of characters that form a family in a particular design or style. Originally referred to the raised surface.

Typeset
The type style and size of words must be set and composed into columns and pages.

Uncoated paper
Paper that has not been coated to give it a shiny, or ‘coated’ finish.

Weight
The degree of boldness or thickness of a letter, font or paper. For paper, it’s usually given in terms of grams per square meter.