Glossary


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 affect.

Acid Free Paper

Paper that has an alkaline pH and resists deteriorating over time. Archival paper must be acid-free and alkaline with a pH of 7.5 to 8.5.

Bleed

Printing term that refers to printing that goes beyond the edge of the sheet after trimming. The bleed is the part on the side of your document that gives the printer that small amount of space to move around paper and design inconsistencies.

Binder's Board

A heavy paperboard that is used for hardback binding of books.

Blind Embossing

Embossed forms that are not inked, or gold leafed.

Book Block

A term given the unfinished stage of bookmaking when the pages are folded, gathered and bound but not yet placed in the cover

Bookmark Ribbon

A place holding ribbon that is glued to spine before binding.

Butterfly Fold

Softcover book that has extended cover flaps that fold into the inside of the book

CMYK

CMYK refers to the four inks used in most color printing: cyan, magenta, yellow and black

Coated Stock

Any paper that has a mineral coating applied after the paper is made, giving the paper a smoother finish.

Crop Marks

Crossed lines placed at the corners of an image or a page to indicate where to trim it are known as crop marks

Debossing

A logo, title, or other design is heat-pressed into the surface of the paper with a die, creating depressions rather than raised impressions as in embossing. The same technquesused for embossing  blind, foil, and ink

DPI

(Dots Per Inch) The measurement of the resolution of display and printing systems.

Dummy

A mock up of the desired look of the finsihed book; also called a comp.

Endsheet or Endleaf

A sheet of paper, often distinctively colored or ornamented, folded vertically once to form two leaves, one of which is pasted flat to the inside of the front or back cover of a book, with the other pasted to the inside edge of the first or last page to form a endleaf. Also called a flyleaf.

Flush Cover

A bound book or booklet etc. having the cover trimmed to the same size as the text.

Foil Printing

Foil printed on flat sheets of faux suede which are then applied to the hard cover

Foil stamping

Application of foil, a special film-backed material, to a surface where a heated die is stamped onto the foil, making it adhere to the surface leaving the design of the die on the paper.

French Fold

Book printing on one side so that when folded once in each direction, the printing on outside of the folds.

GSM

Abbreviation for grams per square metre. This indicates the weight of paper or other stock. For example; A typical photocopier paper would be 80 gsm - a good letterhead paper might be 100 gsm - a postcard would be about 250 gsm

Gutter

The gutter is the space between the printed area and binding, also referred to as a margin.

Headbands

Headbands are the decorative element found at the head and tail of a the text block on a bound book.

InDesign

Adobe InDesign is a comparatively new professional design layout package

JPEG

Joint Photographic Experts Group. A cross platform image format that uses "lossy" compression for saving images. This means saving an image in jpeg format throws away data from the original image.

Kerning

The narrowing of space between two letters so that they become closer and take up less space on the page.

Letterpress

Printing that utilizes inked raised surfaces to create the image.

Offset

The most commonly used printing method, whereby the printed material does not receive the ink directly from the printing plate but from an intermediary cylinder called a blanket which receives the ink from the plate and transfers it to the paper.

Oversewn bindings

Type of bookbinding produced by sewing together loose leaves of paper to form a book block. Threads pass through small holes that have been punched in the signature/page gutter (nearest the spine), forming overlock stitches that attach it to previously attached sections

Page

One side of a sheet of paper.

Pagination

The process of performing page makeup/ordering of pages.

Paper Grain

The alignment of fibers along the direction of flow in paper making. In grain-long paper, fibers run parallel to the sheet's length, while grain-short follows the width. Generally, registration is easier to control, folds are cleaner, and binding stronger when running with the grain.

Perfect Binding

A term used to describe the binding process where the signatures of a book are held together by a flexible adhesive.

PDF

File format created by Adobe Systems for document exchange. Acronym for Portable Document Format. This is a cross platform format used for sharing files with any user.

PSD

(PhotoShop Document) is an image file type created in Adobe PhotoShop. It is uncompressed and contains data on editing that is done to the image.

RGB

RGB color model  in which red, green and blue light are added together in various ways to reproduce a broad array of colors

Saddle Stitching

A binding method in which the signature is opened up and stapled at the center. Multiple signatures can be stacked on top of each other and stapled. Pamphlets, folders, leaflets and magazines that consist of folded signatures bound by staples through the center fold are called saddle stitched.

Score

Impressions or cuts in flat material to facilitate bending or tearing.

Side Stitching

Stitching where the wire staples pass through the pile of sections or leaves gathered upon each other and are clinched on the underside

Signature

A folded sheet of paper, printed on both sides, for use in a publication. Signatures are produced in four-page increments, up to 64 pages. In common practice, the term also refers to any press sheet to be folded and bound.

Spine

Back edge of a book.

Spiral Bind

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

Spot Varnish

A special effect that puts an overprint varnish only on specific areas of a printed piece, spot varnish is often used to make a photograph pop off the page, highlight drop caps, or to create texture and subtle images on the page

Tiff File

Tagged Image File Format (abbreviated TIFF) is a file format for storing images, including photographs and line art.

QuarkXpress

Professional page layout program

Gallery

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