A
All-over finish
Finishing applied to the entire surface of the print product, e.g., dispersion varnish, UV coating or soft touch lamination.
B
Bleed
The bleed refers to the margin that extends beyond the final format of the printed product. It serves as a safety margin and is removed by the cutting machine after printing.
C
CMYK
CMYK stands for a colour space, according to which colour values can be specified. The letters of the term stand for cyan, magenta, yellow and key (black). Any other colour can be mixed with these four colours.
Control copy
A control copy is a digital sample print on art print paper. It is therefore binding neither in terms of material nor colour and is only required to check the page order and contents.
Colour application
The maximum colour application is the total sum of individual colour channels that can be applied during printing depending on the production time and paper/print substrate. If too little colour is applied during printing, the colour on the print product can be hardly visible or even not visible at all, depending on the printing process and substrate.
Colours
Specification whether the front and reverse of a pint product can be printed in black, in colour or even with a spot colour. Multicolour print on both sides is termed “4/4 colours” (derived from four-colour printing). With 4/1 colours printing, the front is printed in four colours, the reverse is monochrome (black).
Colour saturation
Describes the quality of a colour nuance, i.e., whether it can be categorised as a rather chromatic or achromatic colour. The higher the colour saturation, the purer the colour and the more intensively we see it. The opposite of high colour saturation is what we call greyish tint or dullness.
Crease line
Cutting tolerances
Cutting the print product to the final format may result in deviations of up to one millimetre. A bleed needs to be added to the artwork to make sure that no important design elements are cut off. This serves as tolerance for possible later trimming differences.
D
Digital printing
Digital printing is a printing process during which the print image is transferred directly to the printing machine, without using any printing plate, film or other static element. Laser printers, for instance, belong to this group of printing systems.
F
Film lamination
Film lamination adds a special finish to print products. The surface of your print product is covered with a razor-thin film. This provides the print product with a pleasant feel, additional abrasion protection, and also increases colour intensity. Film lamination is available in matt or glossy.
Finishing
Finishing is a subsequent processing step after printing your product. It is used to change and/or optimise the look and feel of the product, and to enhance its quality and protective properties. Typical finishing of print products is the application of such coatings as UV, relief or dispersion varnish.
Folding type
The print products are folded in different shapes by means of this post-print step. We can thus obtain several pages without having to bind them. There are lots of different possibilities of folding your print products.
Four-colour printing
This printing technology is a standard system in offset and digital printing. It is based on the three primary colours: cyan, magenta, yellow and black (as the key colour). Any other colour can be simulated by mixing these tones. During this process, the colours are directly overlayed or printed at great density next to each other.
More information
G
Glued fold binding
Glued fold binding, also called paste binding, is usually produced in long print runs. This binding technique works best with lower weight paper which is pasted together at the spine.
Grain direction
Specifies the orientation of paper fibres in the sheet.
I
Imposition
Describes the arrangement and positioning of pages on the print sheet. Die to this, the print product will have the right page order after printing, folding and stitching.
L
Lorem ipsum
Dummy text whose words have no meaning. It is used as a placeholder in the layout to visualise the finished document.
O
Offset printing
During offset printing, the print image is applied not directly to the paper, but is indirectly transferred to a printing plate. The reversed print image is subsequently transferred to a rubber plate from which the colour is then applied to the paper in the right reading orientation and good legibility. This ensures very high print quality.
Opacity
Stands for the opposite of transparency, i.e., lack of transparency or impermeability to light.
P
Pad printing
Indirect intaglio printing process suitable not only for smooth, but also for curved, round and uneven surfaces, such as promotional items. The ink is first applied to a metal or plastic cliché and the excessive ink is removed with a squeegee. A high-elasticity stamp (pad) made of silicone or rubber takes in the ink and transfers it to the three-dimensional surface to be printed.
Page creep
If several pages are put into each other and stitched together, the inner pages will stick out somewhat further. This effect is referred to as page creep. This is characteristic of, e.g., brochures with a substantial number of pages.
Pantone
Pantone range stands for a globally used colour system by the US company Pantone LLC. The Pantone Matching System (PMS) is used to simplify colour communication. Each colour nuance has a number and can be described in detail (mixing ratio).
Perforation
Some print products can feature horizontal or vertical perforation (regular hole pattern) that helps to easily tear off a segment.
Preflight
The output of a print design is simulated by means of software. This helps to detect and eliminate potential errors before printing. It will be checked by default, e.g., whether there is access to all image data and whether all required fonts have been activated.
Preview file
A PDF file that contains the position of punching, perforation or numbering. This file must be uploaded in addition to the actual artwork files. These data are required for visualisation and will not be printed.
Pre-print
Pre-print is the process carried out prior to printing. It includes preparation of artwork, positioning of pages on the print sheet (imposition) and creating the cliché.
Printing plate
Storage for print information (text and image). The image is applied to the print sheet by means of the printing plates with inks. In offset printing, aluminium plates are used.
Print sheet
Paper sheet printed on by the machine. Along with the print product, it may also contain markings for further processing.
Process colours
Unlike spot colours, these colours are mixed during printing from several, mainly primary colours cyan, magenta, yellow and black (CMYK).
R
Raster graphics
A technical printing process that allows displaying halftones. The colours are applied to the paper in small dots: The bigger the spacing between them, the more paper white is visible – and the lighter the colour seems for the human eye even if the colour of individual halftone dots does not change.
Resolution
The resolution of the artwork is specified in dpi (dots per inch) and decisively determines the print quality of a product. Generally it can be said that the higher the dpi number, the better the print quality. In contrast, the print result will be pixelated and blurred with too low dpi values. The resolution required for your product is specified under artwork information.
S
Saddle stitch binding
Saddle stitch binding is a fast and low-priced binding technique which uses wire staples to secure folded sheets of paper.
Safety margin
The safety margin ensures that the important graphical and textual information is definitely well visible on the end product. It shall be positioned at least 4 mm away from the final format size unless otherwise specified.
Same day printing
Additional option to reduce the production time of your print product. With this option, the production will be started on the day you order. Prerequisite: Both the payment and all artwork files must be available by the time specified on the product page.
Screen printing
The process used to print on demanding surfaces or materials, such as textiles or promotional items. The print design is transferred to the substrate with the help of a stencil created by means of UV light. It consists of a fine-mesh screen and is permeable to ink only in the areas not subjected to irradiation. The inks for screen printing are applied to the material by means of a squeegee with a rubber edge.
Specimen copy
A specimen copy is a copy of your print order that is consistent in terms of colour and material, and it shows the final print result.
Spine width
Spine width is the width of the book or catalogue back; it is calculated on the basis of the number of pages inside and the paper weight.
More information on spine width of catalogues and spine width of books
Spot colour
Spot colours, e.g., Pantone or HKS, are used to achieve a specific colour that is not included in the CMYK colour space.
Spot finish
Only individual elements or details of the design are visually highlighted by means of finishing, e.g., spot relief varnish, UV coating or silver colour.
T
Template
Stands for a design pattern.
Transparency
Transparencies emerge, for example, if you reduce the opacity of objects or add a shadow effect in the layout program: The elements will then appear transparent.
U
UV coating
Solid synthetic resin particles are applied to the print product as a varnish film. Subsequent UV radiation creates consistent, full-coverage varnish coating. This makes your print product highly resistant and brilliant in appearance.
UV colour
V
Vector graphics
Vector graphics are based on lines and geometric shapes that can be engraved by a laser, for example. Vector graphics have to be provided for some of our products.
W
Waste paper
Paper material that became unfit for use during printing or as a result of printing error.
Watermark
A sign or logo in the paper created by means of screen printing, embossing or pressure. Watermarks also constitute a security feature of banknotes.