useful information

Glossary - A

A/W

An abbreviation for Artwork.

AA

Authors Alterations, changes other than corrections, made by a client after the proofing process has begun. AAs are usually charged to a client as billable time.

Abrasiveness

The tendency of a paper, coating or ink to abrade or wear away die edges, slitting blades, printing type, etc., by friction.

Absorbency

The capacity a paper has for accepting liquids, like the inks or water used to run offset lithographic presses.

Accordion fold

Two or more parallel folds made in opposite directions, which open like an accordion - also called Concertina fold.

Acetate

A plastic synthesized from cellulose dissolved in acetic acid which exhibits rigidity, dimensional stability and ink receptivity. Transparent or matte films, sometimes used for label stocks.

Achromatic

Colour correction system used in conjunction with a colour scanner that removes a degree of extraneous colour.

Acrobat

A commercial program from Adobe for creating and editing PDF files.

Acrobat Reader

A free program from Adobe, used for displaying and printing PDF files. Creating and editing PDFs requires commercial programs such as Acrobat Distiller and Acrobat Exchange.

Acrylic

A rigid thermoplastic sign material available in transparent, translucent and opaque appearances. Acrylic sheet can be clear or produced in a variety of colour tones. Acrylic that is manufactured by pouring a molten compound into a thin compartment and curing it under heat and pressure is said to be cell cast. Acrylic manufactured by casting a liquid compound between moving stainless steel plates that exert heat and pressure is sold to be continuous cast.

Acrylic Adhesive

Pressure-sensitive adhesive based on high-strength, acrylic polymers. Can be coated as a solvent or emulsion system.

Acrylic Emulsion

A water-based latex make with acrylic polymers, used in coatings and adhesives.

Actual weight

The true weight of any volume of paper. The actual weight of paper is used to determine both purchase price and shipping costs. See also basic size, basis weight, weight.

Addendum

Supplementary material that is additional to the main body of a book, printed separately at the start or end of the text or posted on the web.

Additive colours

The primary colours of light - red, green and blue (the RGB “colour space”) that may be mixed to form all other colours in photographic reproduction and in computer monitors.

Additives

Ingredients of paper other than pulp. Additives include clay fillers, dyes, sizing, and other chemicals.

Adhesion

A measurement of the force required to remove a label from a substrate. Several test methods normally characterize this force at various time intervals after application to various substrates.

Adhesive

A substance capable of holding materials together by surface attachment.

Adhesive Permanent

A PS adhesive characterized by having relatively high ultimate adhesion. The label either cannot be removed intact or requires a great deal of force to be removed.

Adhesive Removable

A PS adhesive characterized by low ultimate adhesion. The label can be removed from most substrates without damaging the surface or leaving a residue surface or leaving a residue or stain.

Adhesive Residue

Adhesive Residue: (Adhesive Deposit, Adhesive Transfer): The adhesive remaining behind on a substrate when a P.S. label is removed removed.

Adhesive, Cold Temperature

An adhesive that will enable a PS label to adhere when applied to refrigerated frozen substrates, generally + 35 degrees F or colder.

Adhesive, High Temperature

An adhesive that will enable a PS label to withstand sustained elevated temperature (+200 degrees F or higher).

Adhesive, Pressure Sensitive

A type of adhesive, which in a dry form is aggressively tacky at room temperature. It has the capability of promoting a bond to dissimilar surfaces on contact, with pressure.

Against the grain

Folding or feeding paper at right angles to the direction of the paper fibers.

Air

An amount of white space in a layout.

Airbrush

A mechanical painting tool producing an adjustable spray of paint driven by compressed air. Used in illustration design and photographic retouching.

Align

To line up typeset or other graphic material as specified, using a base or vertical line as the reference point. Page layout programmes like Quark Xpress use x and y co-ordinates to achieve accuracy to three decimal pts of a mm.

Alphabet (length or width)

The measurement of a complete set of lower case alphabet characters in a given type size expressed in points or picas.

Alt tag

The text description of a graphic on a web page in case of graphics being turned off in the browser.

Aluminium

A soft, silver coloured metal commonly used as an engraving material for printing plates. Anodised aluminium has been electroplated with an aluminium oxide coating, which gives it a hard, durable surface.

Ambient Temperature

Normal fluctuating temperatures in an environment which are not closely controlled, e.g. in a typical warehouse, boxcar, office building, etc.

Ampersand

The '&' character - meaning, quite literally 'and' - it is the stylisation of the Latin 'et' for 'and'.

Aniline dye

Generic term for the cheap volatile synthetic dyes made from dye dissolved in Methylated spirit and used in flexographic printing inks.

Anodised plate

An offset printing plate with a specially treated surface to reduce wear during printing.

Anti-alias

Blending text and image edges into background colour to eliminate the stair-step effect - aliasing - prevalent in bitmaps.

Antiquarian

Largest size of hand made paper - 53 x 31 in.

Anvil

A hardened steel roll upon which the bearers of a rotary die cutter ride which also provides the hardened surface to support the die cutting.

Apex

Point of a character where two lines meet at the top, eg. the point on the letter A.

API

Application Programming Interface; language/message format used by an application program to communicate with either an operating system, or control program.

Appendix

Material subordinate to the text of the work, printed and bound immediately after it. Planned from the beginning of a job.

Application Temperature

Temperature of a substrate or label material at the time the label will be applied. All Fasson adhesives have a minimum application temperature rating. Testing is recommended when approaching minimum application temperature.

Applicator

A device that automatically feeds and applies pressure sensitive labels to a product.

Aqueous Coating

A water-based coating applied after printing, either while the paper is still on press ("in line"), or after it's off press. An aque- ous coating usually gives a gloss, dull, or matte finish, and helps prevent the underlying ink from rubbing off. Unlike a UV coat- ing or a varnish, an aqueous coating will accept ink-jet printing, making it a natural choice for jobs that require printing addresses for mass mailings.

Archival Paper

Paper that's alkaline and won't deteriorate over time. Archival papers must meet national standards for permanence: they must be acid-free and alkaline with a pH of 7.5 to 8.5; include 2% calcium carbonate as an alkaline reserve; and not contain any ground wood or unbleached wook fiber. The expected life of archival paper is more than 100 years.

Art

In graphic arts usage, all matter other than text material eg illustrations and photographs.

Art Director

The individual responsible for overseeing the creative and production process and managing other creative individuals.

Art paper

A smooth coated paper made by adding a coating of china clay compound on one or both sides of the paper.

Ascender

Any part of a lower case letter above the x-height, e.g. the part of a letter extending above the main body.

ASCII

American Standard Code for Information Exchange. The standard format for representing text in 8-bit parcels.

Aspect Ratio

The ratio of height to width of a bar code symbol. A code twice as high as wide would have an aspect ratio of 2; a code twice as wide as high would have an aspect ratio of 1/2 or 0.5.

Assembly

Collection and arrangement of the art or film negatives necessary for plate making.

Attachment

An image, movie file or document that is attached to and sent with an email.

Authentication

Method of ensuring that the person accessing a computer system is who they claim to be.

Author's corrections

Changes made to the copy by the author after typesetting but not including those made as a result of errors in keying in the copy.

A feature of 4th and 5th generation browsers that completes a URL as it is being typed in.

Auto-leading

A default setting in page layout software to determine the horizontal space between baselines, usually 120%.