Mar 10 2010

Glossary of Terms for
Paper and Printing

"A"

A-SIZES

The international ISO range of metric paper sizes, the largest being AO (841x1189mm). The sizes reduce proportionally from AO by folding in half each time.

ABBREVIATION

Abbreviations are the term given in typography to characters that are composed through the fusion of letters. One example of this is the character "&", which is a combination of the letters 'e' and 't' to form 'et' (Latin for 'and').

ABCD SCHEME

An initiative in the UK designed to classify the type and amount of recycled fibre in a paper product. The scheme grades four types of waste used in paper manufacture, as follows:

A - Woodfree, approved own mill waste (waste that has not left the mill. i.e. mill broke).
B - Woodfree unprinted waste (waste that has left the mill but not reached the consumer, typically from the printer or converter).
C - Woodfree printed waste (post consumer waste, collected from homes, offices etc).
D - Printed mechanical waste (post consumer waste, typically newspapers).

To be classified as recycled the grade has to contain no less than 50% of the total fibre from any combination of the above sources, with the percentages given for each. Therefore Cairngorm is 15A/65B/10C (90% recycled in total with the remainder being virgin fibre.

ABRASIVE PAPERS

Papers covered on one or both sides with abrasive powder, e.g. emery, sand paper etc.

ABSORBENCY

Ability of paper or board to take up or retain aqueous solutions; printing inks, varnishes and the like.

ABSORBENT PAPERS

Duplicator, blotting and filter papers are the best known; drying royal, matrix paper and towelling are other examples.

ACCEPTED STOCK

That part of the stock which is not rejected by cleaning and/or screening.

ACID FREE

A term describing paper and board that can be used with anything that may be tarnished or otherwise harmed by acid.The paper will have a neutral pH balance (7.0)

ACID FREE PAPER

Paper manufactured in a neutral or slightly alkaline pH environment to prevent the internal chemical deterioration of paper over time.

ACROBAT

A program by Adobe which allows documents that have been created in a variety of software formats to be displayed and printed in the same way on different computers, printers or media such as the Internet. This kind of document can be recognized by the filename extension 'pdf.' (Portable Document Format) and can be viewed using the Acrobat reader, which is available to download on the Internet free of charge.

ACTUAL WEIGHT

The true weight of any volume of paper, which is used to determine both a paper's purchase price and shipping costs.

ADDITIVE COLOUR MIXING

This is the process of producing colour through the addition of different colours of light. Computer and television screens use thousands of red, green, and blue phosphor dots, which are so small and close together that the human eye cannot see them individually. Instead, the eye sees the colours formed by the mixture of light.

ADDITIVE COLOURS

Additive colours are produced through the addition of different coloured light. In theory, every colour can be produced by mixing the primary colours of the visible light spectrum: red, green and blue (RGB). Combining all three primary colours to equal parts produces white. The colour vision of the human eye works through red-, green- and blue- sensitive sensory cells. When, for example, red and green rays of light reach the corresponding receptor cells in the eye, we see the mixed colour yellow. When all three colour receptors are stimulated, the eye sees white. RGB is the usual additive colour system and is used predominantly for television screens, computer monitors and scanners. Combining two of the primary colours in equal parts produces the secondary colours cyan, magenta and yellow, which in turn form the basic colours of the subtractive colour system CMYK).

ADDITIVES

Fillers, dyes, sizing, enhancements and other materials added to pulp to give paper strength, brightness, colour, fibred appearance or other desirable attributes.

ADHESIVE BINDING

A binding method which uses thread-free adhesives to secure loose leaves into a solid text block.

ADOBE

Adobe Systems Incorporated, are a leading software manufacturer in the field of graphics and image editing. The company's products include the image editing program "Photoshop", the illustration program "Illustrator" and the desktop publication programs "InDesign" and "PageMaker". Adobe is also the originator of the page description language "PostScript" and the device - independent data format "PDF" (Portable Document Format).

AGEING

The deterioration of paper properties with time. Sunlight and heat accelerate loss of strength and brightness.

AIR DRY

The moisture content of a substance when in equilibrium with the surrounding atmosphere;

AIR RESISTANCE

The rate at which air penetrates through paper. A property important to control for some paper requirements, i.e. to prevent the excessive penetration of liquids and to give print gloss, freedom from blistering of coated paper when the ink is heat set, and to allow sheets of paper to be picked up individually by air suction pads of printing press feeders.

AIRMAIL

Papers made in the lightest substance (usually below 40g/m2) for reasons of postage costs, consistent with strength and a good surface. Generally produced in white, off-white or a pale blue for stationery purposes.

ALKALINE PAPERMAKING

Paper manufactured under alkaline conditions, using additives, caustic fillers like calcium carbonate and neutral size. The anti-aging properties in alkaline paper make it a logical choice for documents where permanence is essential.

ALTAR FOLD

Also called gatefold or windowfold. This technique involves folding the sheet so that two flaps are formed, which can be opened from either side.

ALUM

The term used in papermaking for aluminium sulphate. Its action on rosin size is to precipitate the size upon the fibres giving them a degree of water repellency.

ANILINE PRINTING

Aniline printing is an old term for flexographic printing, and takes its name from the aniline-based inks employed. Printing presses using this process employ rubber rollers as letterpress forms and print with quick-drying, low-viscosity inks. The first presses of this type appeared on the market at the beginning of the 20th century. They were mainly used to print packaging material.

ANILOX LETTERPRESS PRINTING

Is a form of printing which uses a very simple ink dispensing system borrowed from gravure printing. An inking roller ("anilox roller") with small recesses arranged in a grid form is inked to excess and a doctor blade is then used to remove the excess ink. This immediately results in a very uniform film of ink, such that no further rollers are needed in the inking unit for ink distribution. The advantages of this process include the simple design of the inking unit and the ease with which ink feed can be controlled.

ANTIQUE PRINTING

A printing paper surface with a rough finish but good printing surface, valued in book printing for its high volume characteristics.

AOX

Absorbable Organic Halogens. Collective term for the halogen compounds (chlorine, fluorine, bromine and iodine) bound to organic substances, for example in waste water from the mill. The compounds arise when bleaching with chlorine-containing chemicals although they can also occur naturally and are potentially detrimental to water quality.

APPLICATION SERVER

An application server is a network server in which a group of programs are collectively integrated into a Web server's environment. Instead of having individually installed programs, the network's users have access to the server program. These applications are connected to an Application Program Interface (API) which allows higher-level tasks to be performed remotely. Another advantage of these applications is that licensing requirements can be more easily met, as the users do not usually have their own hard drive, which prevents the installation of so-called pirate copies. It is also possible to install the latest software available on all computers in the network with a single update on the server. This kind of server enables a user at a Web page to perform sophisticated interactions, such as querying a database or running other programs loaded on the server.

AQUEOUS PAPER

A water-based coating, applied after printing either in-line or off-press, to help prevent ink from rubbing off. Unlike UV coating or a varnish, aqueous coating will also accept ink jet printing.

ARCHIVAL PAPER

A paper with long-lasting qualities, normally 100 years, acid free, lignin free, usually with good colour retention.

AREMETER

The areometer (aka scale areometer, hydrometer, spindle), a device for determining the density of liquids, is used in printing technology to measure the concentration of alcohol in water-containing process liquids. The device consists of a sealed glass tube filled with air with a weight at one end. Once the areometer is placed in the liquid being tested, it floats either higher or lower, depending on the density of the liquid. The density can then be read off using a scale. This scale is graduated in special units (Bé after Baumé or Brix), or in the case of specialist areometers directly in the concentration being measured (alcohol concentration in the case of alcometers, sugar concentration with saccharimeters, etc.) Because the density of liquids changes with temperature, the scale of an areometer is always relative to a specific temperature. To make correct measurements easier to obtain, some areometers also feature a thermometer.

ART PRINTING PAPER

A premium-grade stock coated on both sides (C2S), preferable for the high-quality reproduction of colour prints. Art printing papers usually have a very smooth, glossy surface, though some have a matt or semi-matt finish. They allow illustrations to be reproduced by offset or letterpress in much finer halftone screens.

ARTWORK

Reproduction-quality origination, for making films.

ASCII

The American Standard Code for Information Interchange, or ASCII for short, was standardized in the USA and is used to encode letters and numbers in digital form for electronic storage and processing. This was originally done using binary numbers with seven digits (seven bits), making it possible to represent a total of 128 characters. The use of 8-bit numbers was later introduced, increasing the total to 256 characters. Unicode notation based on 16-bit numbers has been gaining increasing acceptance in recent years. It can be used to represent 65,536 different characters.

ASH

Mineral residue left from burning a sample of paper to determine the percentage of filler it contains.

ASH CONTENT

The ash content of a paper stock refers to the quantity of anorganic substances in it, which that converts to ash when burned.

ASPHALT COATING

Asphalt coating is the term given to a dark brown - black mixture made of wax, resin and asphalt. It is easy to melt and can be dissolved in organic solvents such as gasoline, petroleum or turpentine. Thanks to its resistance to acids, asphalt coating serves a covering layer in the etching processes used for manufacturing printing forms.

AT

"Advanced Technology" was introduced by IBM in 1984. The AT Computer, descendant of the XT computer was built on an 80286-Processor from Intel. Today, every PC that works with 16-or 32-Bit processor is called an AT computer.

ATTACHMENT or ATTACHED FILE

This is the name given to data that is included (or 'attached' either Uuencoded or MIME-Standard as part of an e-mail message. You can attach almost any kind of file, through most popular email programs. Attachments are usually archived, especially when the files are large. Attachments carry the greatest danger of transferring computer viruses.

AUTOGRAPH

The word originally comes from the Greek ('self-written') and means a document written, or at least signed, by the author\'s own hand. There have been collections of the autographs of famous persons, and a corresponding trade in these documents, since the end of the 16th century.