Glossary

M-shaped folding, allowing the brochure to unfold like an accordion (with 3 to 10 folds or more).

Adding forgotten text to a printout.

Unwanted effect related to dithering, causing stairs to appear on slanted lines and on the edges of photos.

Simultaneous printing, on the same sheet, of different documents provided on the same paper and in the same colors.

Horizontal and/or vertical distortion of a character or an image, using computing.
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Gathering of different notebooks to obtain a book in binding order. Assembly: the notebooks next to each other and inserting: notebooks inside each other.

Fold side of a notebook or hinge side of a book.

It is the mass of paper per square meter. Its unit is g/m², and it provides an indication of the paper thickness.

Good to Print / Good to Engrave: Acceptance signed by the sponsor to the photoengraver or printer, giving him his agreement for printing. Signing the proof on the model or contractual color proof releases the printer from any liability in the event of an error or omission after printing. This is a legal document in the event of a dispute.

Acronym for Benjamin Day, American and inventor of the process in the 19th century, consisting of superimposing primary color frames in order to obtain a CMYK shade without gradient

Printing in two primary colors or spot colors.​

On a press, located between the plate cylinder and the counter-pressure cylinder, ensuring printing by ink transfer, it is made of rubber.

The bleed involves extending the background (color or image) beyond the final printing format to allow for printing without white borders. It should be at least 2 mm.

Small undesirable artifact on the film, plate, or paper.

Total height of a letter including the head and foot slope (see slope) expressed in points.

Parallel lines spaced between the laid lines within the thickness of laid paper.

Mechanical action consisting of smoothing the paper between two rollers.

Capital letters.

Cardboard with a weight starting at 250 gsm.

Fibrous substance obtained from wood, cotton, linen, hemp and other plants. It is the solid element of plants used to make paper pulp.

Printing letters – set of letters of a specific alphabet: family of characters.

Computer protocol for exchanging and recording printing parameters

Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Black: the four basic colors of four-color process. The entire spectrum is simulated by superimposing these four shades.
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It is a paper that has undergone a surface treatment, giving it a smooth finish. The term “coated” does not necessarily imply the concept of gloss, as there are, in addition to glossy coated papers, satin coated papers and matte coated papers. Uncoated paper (offset, bulky, creation) absorbs ink more easily.

The calibration of the graphic chain seeks to harmonize the representation of the image through the elements that make up this chain. In the world of DTP, on-screen visualization and offset printing do not cover the same light spectrum panels (gamut) and reproduce colors in different modes (RGB / CMYK). It is essential to calibrate a screen if you wish to pre-visualize the colors as faithfully as possible compared to the final printing of the document

Color measurement and identification.

“Computer-Assisted Publishing” refers to the set of computer processes used to create documents intended for printing. It represents the logical and historical evolution of typography and photocomposition.

Rapid proofing system allowing a file to be validated without making printing plates. (Trademark).

Part of the visual elements of the page that will be trimmed during the cutting process (see bleed).

Small horizontal and vertical lines placed on either side of the corners of a document, aligned with the final format. They are used for the trimming operation.

Action which consists of keeping only a specific part of an image. A four-color process is said to be cropped when the photo does not appear in the layout.

Fold executed perpendicular to another.

Computer to Plate: process intended to produce plates directly from the computer file.

Cuttings which cannot be carried out with a paper cutter (can be combined with creasing to facilitate folding). Made with a shape composed of grooved and/or cutting steel threads.

A device used to moisten the offset plate (based on the principle of repulsion between the greasy ink and water, the wet areas of the plate will not be printed).

Raster images (bitmaps) are also defined by their definition and resolution. The definition of an image is defined by the number of points composing it. In digital images, this corresponds to the number of pixels that make up the image in height and width. The resolution of an image is defined by a number of pixels per unit length of the structure to be scanned (conventionally in ppi). The higher the number of pixels per unit length of the structure to be scanned, the greater the amount of information describing this structure and the higher the resolution.

Tearing of the upper layer of paper following the strong tension of an ink or varnish.

Color density measuring device. It provides information on the screen ruling, the size of the halftone dot, the black values (density from 4 to 5) and finally the non-screened halftone values.

Opacity and transparency, measurable with a densitometer, are values of a film used for pre-copy control. The term is used to measure the density of inks (optical) and gravure solvents (weight).

A typographic measurement (0.3759 mm), one twelfth of a Cicero unit.

A custom-made structure in which cutting rules and creasing rules are interlocked, enabling the production of a specific shape for the final product.

Method of photoengraving by selection of colors in directly screened films.

Document in black and white, free from any halftone

Dot Per Inch, or point per inch. This defines the print quality of a digital file. Dpi is a unit of precision. The higher this value, the better the quality. The basic frame constituting the coating of a digital image, whether in printing or digital photography, is defined in dpi. Example, for a digitized photograph intended for printing, it is customary to sample it at 300 Dpi.

The act of printing. The quantity of copies produced in a printing run.

Printing on both sides of the sheet in a single pass on a press (8-color press).

A printing process that produces raised patterns, whether inked or not, using intaglio plates and corresponding relief counterplates.

Engraved die and counter-die used to create a raised (or recessed) relief in the texture of the paper.

The endpaper is placed before the half-title or at the end of the volume. When there are two blank pages left due to technical necessity, endpapers may be found at the beginning and the end of the book.

Refers to finishing work in the production of a book: rounding of the spine, placing a bookmark, edge cutting, etc.

Appearance of a sheet examined by transparency to judge its opacity

A document in vector EPS format is a file in Postscript language describing the content of an image or a complete page (texts, lines, imported images). Unlike Postscript which can only be used for printing, the EPS file can be viewed and imported into many DTP drawing and layout software.

Fixed text on a flyout.

Part of half of a notebook which protrudes 8 to 10 mm after folding, used by the maker, ensuring faster and more secure handling by the saddle maker.

Original intended for reproduction in photoengraving before printing.

Method of communication and collaboration between companies using Internet technologies. Private network limited to an identified population.

When the final line of a large division (part or chapter) is on an odd page (= right page or beautiful page), the following division falls on a false page; We generally prefer to leave this page blank and resume on a beautiful page.

Deformation of the halftone point relative to its absolute value.

The set of processes that a printed work undergoes from its exit from the press to its shipment.

Depending on the configuration of your model, bands with variations in inking may appear when printed. The chimney effect, an inevitable phenomenon linked to most printing technologies, will be responsible.

Total surface of a document uniformly covered by a layer of ink.

A relief printing process, also known as “aniline printing.”

Page numbering in a book.

Page numbering.

In typography, a typeface, or font, is a set of glyphs—visual representations of characters—belonging to the same family. It includes all sizes and weights within the family, maintaining a coordinated style to form an alphabet or the representation of all characters in a language, complete and coherent. It is often confused with the term “font,” which refers to the set of characters with the same size, weight, and italicization within a typeface.

A paper deformation that appears in relief on the reverse side of the sheet due to excessive pressure during letterpress printing.

Four-color process, or CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow, black), is a printing process that reproduces a wide range of colors using the three basic CMY hues, to which black is added. CMY are the three primary colors in subtractive synthesis, as opposed to red, green, blue (RGB), which are primary colors in additive synthesis.

The screen corresponds to a mesh of points allowing halftones to be reproduced, it is measured in linearity (point per inch).

The screen angle designates the angle in degrees at which the alignments of screen points of each color are oriented; a difference in screen angle can cause moiré.

A format where the greater dimension is the height.

File Transfer Protocol. It is a client or server software solution that facilitates the transfer of files between two machines. FTP is commonly used for the transfer of large files.

A chemical phenomenon that alters the paper’s structure, causing a visual effect of a faint transfer of printed elements to the other side of the sheet.

Method of hot relief printing of patterns with gold leaf and by extension metallic areas and colors.

A bronze tool with raised relief used for hot foil stamping to reproduce a document in gold.

The more or less pronounced roughness of the paper surface.

Paper-cutting machine, bearing the name of the inventor.

The white space that separates two columns of text.

Non-dithered image with shades of gray or gradients.

The collective term for common graphical elements placed in the same location at the top of each page header.

Practiced in a colored background, in order to display the paper, or to avoid superposition of colors.

The size of a digital image is crucial. It should be large for maximum print quality (300 dpi), but small for internet transmission (72 dpi). Merely stating the resolution of an image is not enough to define its size; the dimensions must also be specified. For example, saying an image is 300 dpi means little without mentioning its dimensions (e.g., 210 x 297 mm at 300 dpi).

In printing, imposition is the process of arranging the pages of a publication on the printing sheet to create gatherings or sections. It is not necessary to provide imposed files; the printer takes care of this task.

The process of creating or editing drawings or photographs for print or electronic publication using a computer.

Ink is a strongly tinted substance, generally black, which is used to mark the support, paper, textile. Inks are used for writing, drawing, printing or decoration. Ink is generally packaged in vials, bottles or cans for transport. Some of these bottles can be used as inkwells. It can also be in solid form (“stick”).

Placement of an insert, insertion of a notebook into another (e.g. for a stitched brochure)

Additional element of a brochure placed in a specific or indeterminate place in this work.

Intaglio printing process achieved through manual engraving on copper.

An internal computer network specific to an organization and accessible only from within.

Hinge of a book, between the spine and the covers, resulting from the necessary tightening for the rounding of the spine and allowing for better opening of the book.

A file format that compresses images with some loss of quality.

Highly durable wrapping paper obtained from sulfate or soda chemical pulp. The term has German origins and means “strength.”

A high-quality and brand of coated paper with a very glossy finish. The enameled appearance is achieved through calendering with a hot chrome cylinder.

A finishing process that, after printing, is a binding operation adding a thin layer of glossy or matte polypropylene, providing a flawless finish to the material on one or both sides.

Type of paper having undergone a surface treatment giving it good smoothness (Paper). – Typography proof for assembly into a document on the paper of the same name (Typography).

Additional quantity of good sheets needed for the setups of various finishing operations before reaching the finished product.

Arrangement of elements constituting a communication visual. Layouts are typically created using dedicated software based on a project provided by the client.

A term denoting a subdivision of a sheet. In a publication, a feuillet represents two pages, or two sides.

The printer or publisher is obliged to deposit, for the benefit of the national collections, one or more copies of the printed works (except city works).

Fine spaces between the letters of a word. The degree of closeness or looseness needs to be specified during calibration.

A document containing only a pure color and pure white, excluding any gradients.

Measurable white space in points added between two lines of text to provide visual separation and improve readability.

Brand of a typesetting machine producing entire lines of text, called “block lines”.

Flat printing process, predecessor to offset, using a porous stone and based on the repulsion of water and grease. Now primarily used for works of art.

Refers to a specific printing color other than one of the four process colors (CMYK). In France, ton direct is most often a Pantone color.

Graphic emblem of a company or a community.

Lowercase

Acronym for Lines Per Inch. This unit of measurement refers to the number of halftone dots per inch (1 inch = 25.4mm). The higher the lines per inch, the finer the print, resulting in better image quality. In offset printing, screen rulings typically range from 133 to 200 lpi depending on the paper type and the nature of the project. In screen printing, they typically range from 55 to 58 lpi. In flexography, the utilized screens vary between 85 and 133 lpi.

Calibration sheet used for machine setup (see Passe).

Any document intended for postal routing.

The relationship between the thickness and weight of paper: a paper has feel when it appears stiff and thick compared to its grammage.

Effect of alteration in the perception of colors between different light sources (reflection…).

The project of an edition, whether in rough or finalized form, attempting to simulate the appearance of what the printed copy will be, is referred to as a ‘dummy’.

Undesirable visual phenomenon due to an insufficient deviation in the screen angles. A previously printed document or a fabric may also exhibit moiré defects when reproduced in printing.

Continuous or dashed lines in a document.

Cuts out pages of a book to make it easier to find the beginning of a game. Called “boost” when it is in the shape of a semi-circle.

Group of pages resulting from folding a sheet (multiple of 4 pages). For a brochure or a binding, the notebooks are superimposed or inserted into each other as appropriate.

To offset, it’s a reporter. It is an improvement on its predecessor, Lithography. Conventional offset is based on the repulsion of water and grease by creating an emulsion between the dampening solution and greasy ink. It operates on the principle of the antagonism between water and grease. The engraved aluminum plate (printing form) transfers the image onto the blanket, which in turn transfers the ink onto the paper. Offset printing is currently the major printing process. Its success is attributed to its flexibility and ability to adapt to a wide variety of products. It covers a relatively broad range of print runs. This printing process provides high-quality products at a relatively low cost.

Parallel fold performed with irregular intervals.

Printing defect. The ink does not dry sufficiently on the paper and ends up soiling the next sheet. This may be due to the quality of the substrate (it is too closed, does not allow the ink to penetrate, which remains on the surface), the quality of the ink, which does not dry fast enough, or the ink coverage rate being too high (exceeding 300%).

Bleed consists of causing the background (color or image) to overflow outside the final printing format for printing without a white line, which also makes it easier to cut with a paper cutter.

Leaf side, either the recto (front) or the verso (back).

Page numbering.

Pantone is a physical blend of color where inks are mixed by the press operator before printing. The original Pantone system relied not on four but on 14 primary colors. The color swatch, also known as Pantone swatch, includes no less than 800 shades, providing the proportions of each of these 14 base colors. In contrast, four-color process printing (quadrichromy) is an optical blend of color.

The Portable Document Format is a computer file format created by Adobe as an evolution of the PostScript format. The advantage of PDF is that it preserves the fonts, images, graphical objects, and formatting of any source document, regardless of the application that produced it and the one used to read it. PDF files can be created with custom options, including image and text compression, file print quality, and security features. The PDF format has become a standard for the exchange and archiving of electronic documents.

The detachment of particles from the paper layer that undergo tearing and adhere to the printing form.

An operation involving the creation of holes with various diameters (e.g., binder holes). Micro-perforation allows for pre-cutting the paper for easy detachment (e.g., tear-off notepad).

The set of photomechanical techniques involved in the production of printing elements, including screen prints, plates, or cylinders (as well as digital image and color processing).

A unit of measurement approximately equal to 1/6 of an inch. One pica is equivalent to 12 points (the Anglo-Saxon pica measures 4.51 mm).

Mechanical constraint. Strip of non-printable paper on the sheet that is gripped and held during printing by the press.

Manufacturing of several notebooks in soft covers.

A photosensitive aluminum support used in printing for transferring the image onto paper.

Acronym for “Point of Sale Advertising” (Publicité sur le Lieu de Vente in French).

A typographic unit of measurement equal to 1/72 of an inch (approximately 0.353 mm). There are 12 points in a pica

Printing in multiple superimposed or juxtaposed colors, done in spot colors.

A printed product where opening it triggers the projection of specially cut and glued parts.

PostScript is a page description programming language developed by Adobe. It is based on vector formulations of its elements. This cross-platform language allows for the creation of a single file containing all the elements describing the page and facilitates communication between computers and output devices such as printers.

Acronym for Pixels Per Inch. It is a unit of measurement for the resolution at which a device displays text and graphics. The average resolution of a monitor is around 100 PPI, while a laser printer is typically 300 PPI or higher.

Refers to all conceptual, graphic, and technical operations necessary for printing and finishing.

Color that cannot be reproduced by a mixture of other colors. Primary colors are the basis of all possible colorimetric shades.

Printing is a set of techniques used to reproduce writings and illustrations in large quantities on flat surfaces, typically paper, and thus distribute them on a large scale. The techniques, commonly referred to as the graphic chain, range from text composition to finishing processes (binding, folding, etc.), including the treatment of illustrations (photogravure, photos, drawings, engravings), printing, and proofreading. The term “graphic industries” emerged after the Second World War to replace the more generic term “printing.”

Printing damage to the paper surface.

Area at the edge of the page, which must not contain any essential element (neither logo nor text). This is a security zone located near the cut or fold (3mm on most documents).

Schematic description of all the pages of a document, which allows you to quickly view the entire brochure, in reading order.

It is the process of converting a vector image into a raster image intended to be displayed on a screen or printed by printing equipment.

The quantitative unit for paper is called a ream. A ream consists of 500 sheets of the same paper. This ream is further divided into 25 quires of 25 sheets each.

500 sheets of paper in a format obtained by trimming a ream. The most common size is 210 x 297 mm.

The additional printing of a work that has already been printed (e.g., personalizing a document by adding a logo during a second press run).

An object or text set in relief over one or more colors.

The degree of fineness in a reproduction or a halftone. It is expressed in dots per inch (dpi) or pixels per inch (ppi).

Red, Green, Blue color model based on additive synthesis (the combination of the three primary colors of light forms white). Used for video display, but not suitable for offset printing.

Raster Image Processor, is a computerized tool that processes data to make them printable. The RIP acts as a bridge between computer data and data that can be used for printing.

A continuous printing machine that uses paper in roll form.

A hand-drawn sketch of a layout project or a photo to be created.

The action of running the machine in production after the setup operation.

Any operation involving bulk mailings to specific addresses.

Ratio of the dimensions of the reproduced image to those of the corresponding part of the original.

A recessed indentation on heavy-weight papers designed to facilitate folding.

“LPI” (lines per inch) refers to the number of lines or dots per inch that defines the fineness of a screen and its rendering value. This ruling depends on the process, machine, and substrate used.

Start-up of an offset press, adjustment of inks and registration.

A color shade darkened by the addition of black, reducing its brightness.

Finishing operations, giving prints their final shape. examples: folding, assembly, inserting, stitching, sewing, binding.

Error in composition of one or more letters.

Term synonymous with leaflet, used to talk about leaflet, e.g. 3-fold leaflet.

Fabric braid glued to the top and bottom of the body of a book.

High magnification magnifying glass, mounted on a hinge, originally used in the textile industry, then in the printing industry to examine the detail of a print.

The process of notching the pages on the spine side to enhance the distribution and grip of the glue. It is also used to allow seamless binding (perfect binding).

Notebooks assembled, sewn and glued in a square-backed cover.

Notebooks assembled and glued in a square-backed cover.

Intaglio engraving on a steel block, producing a raised effect through slight embossing and a heavy ink load.

Creating a hollow or relief on a paper support, to obtain an embossing or with inking for a stamping.

A binding operation intended to secure the various pages of a brochure using metal wires (staples).

A working tool presenting various shades. Some within the range of four-color process colors achieved through various combinations of benday, while others showcase accompanying colors obtained by mixing different hues (Pantones).

An English-origin term referring to a small newspaper format (A3 or A3+).

A layout model or template.

Print on paper of a composition for control. analog or digital cromalin.

A typographic printing process that, using thick ink and specific drying methods, attempts to mimic the result of intaglio engraving.

A machine proof considered good and used as a reference throughout the print run (see BAT – Bon à Tirer).

Tag Image File Format, is a file format for digital images. Uncompressed TIFF is a common format read by all raster image processing software, and it is extremely flexible.

Case where the front and back are on the same printer form. This imposition technique only requires a single set of plates: a first side is printed then the sheets are turned over to print the other side with the same plates.

Dithering is a variation in the contrast of an image when it is digitized (scanned). This artifact results from the superposition between the network of points of the image and the network of points of the scanning device (see moire).

Phenomenon of refusal of one ink on another, freshly printed. Covering, by expansion or contraction, adjacent colored objects, in order to prevent the appearance of cracks between objects on the press.

Result obtained with three basic colors, generally without black.

The value of a color is its light or dark appearance.

Application of an acrylic varnish on a print intended to facilitate lamination or the printing of a specific ink.

Protection added to the printed sheet to avoid dirt, smudging, etc. It can be matte, glossy or satin. There are offset, acrylic, UV and/or screen printing machine varnishes. A selective oily varnish supplemented by an acrylic varnish allows you to create matte and shiny areas (Drip Off process), without the use of lamination or UV selective varnish (lower and faster cost).

System for contouring a drawing by point coordinates (Bezier curve).

A vector drawing is a representation composed of geometric objects (lines, points, polygons, curves, etc.) with attributes such as shape, position, color, etc., allowing the production of images. It differs from raster images (bitmap) in which one works with pixels.

High quality, unlaid writing paper. Used in art binding.

Paper with stretches. The vergeure (pronounced verjure) is the trace that the sieve leaves in the finished sheet. It can be read in thin air (appearance of the paper seen in transparency). It results from a difference in density of the leaf, heavier in the dark parts and lighter in the light parts. The stretchers are linked by a thread called the chain. The size of the stretches, their number per cm, and the spacing of the chains have constantly varied over time, depending on technical considerations and undoubtedly fashion.

Transparent adhesive intended to be stuck to a window inside for outside readability.

Name given to old books that were kept rolled up. They were most often made of papyrus (which cannot be folded). Differentiated from the codex, book with folded and sewn leaves.

The amount of paper needed for setting up color in printing or for a binding operation.

A pattern created during the paper manufacturing process by pressing the fibers within the thickness of the sheet, visible when held up to light. Watermark: an image printed as a background on a page with a light halftone.

The width of the paper reel or roll.

Drawing a letter at the top and bottom of a jamb

The lightest area of an image; also referred to as “highlight.”

Metallic spiral connecting the leaves together.

Variable space between words adjusted to improve text readability or to fit a typographic block into a given space.

Dry printing process based on the property of certain electrically charged bodies to become sensitive to light.

Printing illustrations or even texts engraved upside down on a wooden board.