P – Glossary of Print and Design Terms
Welcome to our comprehensive glossary of print and design terms. We are continually seeking to grow and improve this glossary, so if you spot any definition you do not agree with, a term that is missing, or have any comments in general, please email our reference team.
Page | One side of a leaf in a publication |
Page Count | Total number of pages that a publication has. Also called extent |
Page Descriptors | Files containing both vector and bitmap information in addition to text, page layout and device information |
Page Makeup | The assemblage of all the necessary elements required to complete a page |
Page Proof | Proof of type and graphics as they will look on the finished page complete with elements such as headings, rules and folios |
Pagination | In the bookwork field, the numbering of pages |
Painted Sheet | Sheet printed with ink edge to edge, as compared to spot colour. The painted sheet refers to the final product, not the press sheet, and means that 100 percent coverage results from bleeds off all four sides |
Palette | See Colour Lookup Table |
Panchromatic | Films or other photographic materials that are sensitive to all colours |
Panel | One page of a brochure, such as one panel of a rack brochure. One panel is on one side of the paper. A letter-folded sheet has six panels, not three |
Paper Grain | Predominant alignment of fibres corresponding to direction in which paper flows on wire screen of papermaking machine |
Paper Plate | A printing plate made of strong and durable paper in the short run offset arena (cost effective with short runs) |
Paper Smoothness | Paper resistence to air flow, used as a measure |
Paper Tray | Paper tray refers to the area within a printer where the paper is stored. The input tray is where the blank paper is stored before printing whereas the output tray is where the printed documents are stored |
Paperboard | Any paper with a thickness (caliper) of 12 points (.3mm) or more |
Paperweight | Weight of paper which is measured in grams per square metre. [GSM/gm2] e.g. 60 gsm usually used for single part listing paper |
Papeterie | A high-grade soft paper used for personal stationery because it accepts handwriting well |
Parallel Fold | Method of folding. Two parallel folds to a sheet will produce 6 panels |
Parchment | A hard finished paper that emulates animal skin; used for documents, such as awards, that require writing by hand |
Parent Sheet | A sheet that is larger than the cut stock of the same paper |
Paste Board | Two or more laminations of paper with middle or lower quality |
Paste Drier | Any of a variety of compounds used in enhancing the drying properties of printing inks |
Paste Ink | An ink having a high level of viscosity |
PDF (Portable Document Format) | Portable Document Format. Developed by Adobe PDF is the open de facto standard for electronic document distribution worldwide. PDF is a universal file format that preserves all of the fonts, formatting, colours, and graphics of any source document, regardless of the application and platform used to create it. PDF files are compact and can be shared, viewed, navigated, and printed exactly as intended by anyone with a free Adobe Acrobat Reader |
Perf Marks | On a “dummy” marking where the perforation is to occur |
Perfect Bind | To bind sheets that have been ground at the spine and are held to the cover by glue. Also called adhesive bind, cut-back bind, glue bind, paper bind, patent bind, perfecting bind, soft bind and soft cover |
Perfecting Press | A printing press that prints both sides of the paper in one pass through the press |
Perforating | Taking place on a press or a binder machine, creating a line of small dotted wholes for the purpose of tearing-off a part of a printed matter (usually straight lines, vertical or horizontal). Also called Perfing |
Perforation Tear Strength | Tear strength of perforated paper, measured perpendicular to perforation and related to combination of perforation pattern and type of paper. Expressed in weight per unit area |
Permissions | If you include material in your book, which has been previously published elsewhere, you will need to seek permission from the original copyright holder to reuse that material. There is often a cost attached to the use of such material, this is a permission fee |
PH | A number used for expressing the acidity or alkalinity of solutions. A value of 7 is neutral in a scale ranging from 0 to 14. Solutions with values below 7 are acid, above 7 are alkaline |
Phloxine | A blue red pigment used mostly in news inks; not a good ink for lithographers, as it bleeds in alcohol and water |
Photo CD | Compact Disk type storage technology developed by Kodak in the early 1990s |
Photographic Film | Substrate coated with emulsion containing light sensitive silver halide grains |
Photomechanical | The platemaking process where plates are coated with photosensitive coatings and exposed to photo negatives or positives |
PhotoShop | Image editing computer application program widely used in imaging. Published by Adobe, it is generally regarded as the industry standard |
Photostat | A photographic print creating an image using photography and electrostatic processes; also called a stat |
Phthalocyanine | The main pigment in the manufacture of cyan ink |
Pica | A unit of measure in the printing industry. A pica is approximately 0.166 in. There are 12 points to a pica. |
Picking | Phenomenon of ink pulling bits of coating or fibre away from the surface of paper as it travels through the press, thus leaving unprinted spots in the image area. |
Piling | A printing problem caused by the accumulation of paper fibres (called lint), pieces of detached coating particles or other paper debris on the printing plate or blanket |
Pin Register | Technique of registering separations, flats and printing plates by using small holes, all of equal diameter, at the edges of both flats and plates |
Pinholing | Small holes (unwanted) in printed areas because of a variety of reasons |
Pixel | Short for “picture element”. A pixel is the smallest resolvable point of a raster image. It is the basic unit of digital imaging |
Pixelation | When an image is displayed at a normal viewing magnification and the pixels are apparent it is said to be pixelated |
Planographic Printing | Printing method whose image carriers are level surfaces with inked areas separated from non-inked areas by chemical means. Planographic printing includes lithography, offset lithography and spirit duplicating |
Plastic Comb | A method of binding books whereby holes are drilled on the side closest to the spine, and a plastic grasping device is inserted to hold the pages together |
Plasticiser | An ink additive that adds flexibility, softness and adhesion |
Plate | A metal or paper light-sensitive sheet. It holds the image to be printed. The image gets on the plate by a photographic process. During printing, the image on the plate picks up ink, which is then indirectly transferred to paper |
Plate Cylinder | The cylinder of a press on which the plate is mounted |
Plate Finish | Any bond, cover or bristol stock with an extremely smooth finish achieved by calendering |
Plate Section | A collection of pages of photographs, usually colour, which are bound together in sections in the book. This is the most cost-effective way of incorporating colour into specialist books |
Plate-Ready Film | Stripped negatives or positives fully prepared for platemaking |
PMS (Pantone Matching System ) | A colour guide to help visualize, communicate and control applied process colours for type, logos, borders, backgrounds and other graphics treatments |
PMT | Photomechanical transfer |
PNG | A PNG (Portable Network Graphics) file is an open source image file format, which supports 24 bit colour, transparency and lossless compression |
Point | 1. Regarding paper, a unit of thickness equating 1/1000 inch.2. Regarding type, a unit of measure equalling 1/12 pica and .013875 inch (.351mm). The point size of a font is measured from the bottom of the descenders to the top of the ascenders. Points are always used to express type size and leading |
Porosity | Characteristic of being permeable to liquids |
Portrait | In printing terms, Portrait is used when describing the paper orientation. In this case the height of the page is greater than the width |
Positive | Film that contains an image with the same tonal values as the original; opposite of a negative. See also negative |
Positive Film | Film that prevents light from passing through images, as compared to negative film that allows light to pass through. Also called knockout film |
Post Bind | To bind using a screw and post inserted through a hole in a pile of loose sheets |
Poster Print | Poster print is an option where a page of a document can be enlarged by printing it across multiple pages |
PostScript (PS) | PostScript is a page description language that was developed by Adobe |
PPI | Pixels per inch |
PPM | Pages per minute – A unit for measuring print speed |
Preflight | In digital prepress, the test used to evaluate or analyze every component needed to produce a printing job. Preflight confirms the type of disk being submitted, the colour gamut, colour breaks, and any art required (illustrations, transparencies, reflective photos, etc.) plus layout files, screen fonts, printer fonts, EPS or TIFF files, laser proofs, page sizes, print driver, crop marks, etc |
Prelims | The prelims are the introductory pages at the beginning of a book before the actual text itself begins. The prelims will contain a title page, half title page, the copyright page, preface, acknowledgements, forwards, and any other material not forming the main part of the book |
Premium | Any paper that is considered better than #1 by its manufacturer |
Prepress | Generic term used to describe any process which is carried out on a product prior to it going onto press (litho or digital) |
Prepress Proof | Any colour proof made using ink jet, toner, dyes or overlays, as compared to a press proof printed using ink. Also called dry proof and off-press proof |
Preprint | To print portions of sheets that will be used for later over printing |
Preprinted Form | A cutsheet, fanfolded or continuous-roll form that has been offset printed with constant copy or design onto which variable data can be imaged |
Presensitised plate | A plate that has been treated with light sensitive coatings by the manufacturer |
Press Check | Event at which make-ready sheets from the press are examined before authorizing full production to begin |
Press Time | Amount of time that one printing job spends on press, including time required for make-ready |
Price Break | Quantity at which unit cost of paper or printing drops |
Primary Colours | In printing the four primary colours are cyan (blue), magenta (red), yellow and black |
Print Media | Print media refers to the material being used to print on. Typical office print media consists of paper, transparencies, labels, envelopes |
Printability | The quality of papers to show reproduced printed images |
Printer Pairs | Usually in the bookwork field, consecutive pages as they appear on a flat or signature |
Printer Spreads | Mechanicals made so they are imposed for printing, as compared to reader spreads |
Printing | Any process that transfers to paper or another substrate an image from an original such as a film negative or positive, electronic memory, stencil, die or plate |
Printing Unit | Assembly of fountain, rollers and cylinders that will print one ink colour. Also called colour station, deck, ink station, printer, station and tower |
Process Colour (Inks) | The colours used for four-colour process printing: yellow, magenta, cyan and black |
Process Lens | A high quality specialty lens made for line art, halftone and colour photography |
Process Printing | Printing from two or more half tones to produce intermediate colours and shades |
Production Run | Press run intended to manufacture products as specified, as compared to make-ready |
Progressive Proofs | Any proofs made from the separate plates of a multi-plate-printing project |
Proof | Test sheet made to reveal errors or flaws, predict results on press and record how a printing job is intended to appear when finished |
Proofreaders Marks | BSI standard symbols and abbreviations used to mark up manuscripts and proofs |
Proofreading | The process by which a galley proof is compared to the customer’s copy and the style copy for accuracy before being presented to the client |
Proportion Scale | Round device used to calculate percent that an original image must be reduced or enlarged by to yield a specific reproduction size. Also called percentage wheel, proportion dial, proportion wheel and scaling wheel |
Proprietary Format | A file format, which is protected by a patent, use of which may require the payment of royalties. The native Adobe Photoshop (PSD) format is an example of a proprietary format |
Pulp Board | Homogeneous sheet which breaks very easily when bent, and is manufacturerd from pulp on a cylinder machine |