Jul 31 2010

Glossary of Terms for
Paper and Printing

"B"

B-SIZES

The international ISO range of metric paper sizes designed for work requiring a larger format than standard A sizes.

B2B

A business operation in e-commerce through which businesses can offer and market their products and services.

BACKING UP

Printing the back or reverse side of a sheet that has already been printed on one side.

BANDWITH

Refers to the amount of data that can pass through a transmission channel while transmitting data from one computer to another in a given period of time. The normal metric for the bandwidth is 'bits per second'(bps), it is also known as the maximum data transfer rate.

BANKER

An envelope with a diamond flap on the long edge.

BANNER

In Internet terminology, a banner is a rectangular window on a web page with text and graphics used for promotional purposes. A distinguishing feature of banners is that they invite users to interact. By clicking the mouse, the user is usually taken to the web site of the advertiser, where more detailed information is available. Banners have been in widespread use since the mid-1990s. In recent times, they have often been animated to attract the attention of the user.

BARYTES

Blanc fix of Barium Sulphate, high white loading. Used for coating photocopier base papers and litho.

BASIC SIZE

The standard sheet size used to establish the basis weight of a ream (500 sheets) of a given paper grade.

BASIS WEIGHT

The weight in pounds of a ream (500 sheets) of a particular paper grade that has been cut to its basic size. Example: a ream of 25" x 38" text paper would weigh 70 lb. The basis weight of papers suitable for watermarks ranges from 16 lb. to 28 lb., with 24 lb. being the preferred weight.

BC2

E-commerce business process where consumers can buy goods and services electronically over the Internet. Thousands of companies already sell their products and services to consumers on the Internet. Customers are increasingly using the Web to select business partners and buy goods and services because they can benefit from 24/7 availability as well as price and feature transparency.

BEATING OR REFINING

The mechanical treatment of the fibres in water to increase surface area, flexibility and promote bonding when dried.

BIBLE PAPER

Thin printing paper, maximum of 50 gr/m2, opaque and as low as 27 gr/m2. It is intended specially for use in deluxe productions; e.g. bibles, dictionaries and high quality publicity productions. Bible paper indicates a paper containing at least 25% rag.

BINDING

The fastening together of papers to create a book or brochure.

BIT

A binary digit, the fundamental unit of digital information.

BIT DEPTH

The term 'bit depth' refers to the number of bits used by a graphic input or output device to display the colour value of a pixel. Graphic cards in computers work with bit depths of up to 24 bit, for example. They thus have 8 bits available for coding each of the three colour components - red, green and blue - in the RGB mode and can thus display 224 or roughly 16.7 million colours. Modern scanners often have bit depths of 30 bits or more.

BITMAP

An array of pixel data that define a character or image. An image consisting of a grid of square dots: a raster.

BLACK GENERATION

Black generation is a term which describes how the colour black is used in a set for four-colour printing. In theory, black is not required in the CMYK colour system for representing various hues of an image. In practice, however, it is used whenever contrast and detail need to be enhanced in dark areas. The term short black or skeleton black is applied if the colour is only used for this purpose (for which only a small amount of black is required). Black can also be used in colour mixes to replace equal components of the three chromatic colours cyan, magenta and yellow (Under Colour Reduction), thereby reducing the total volume of ink actually required in the print. This is known as 'long black'.

BLANKET CYLINDER

The blanket clamped around a cylinder is the core element of offset printing. It transfers the printed image from the printing form to the paper. The process of depositing the ink on the blanket also gave rise to the term 'offset printing'. Blankets enable consistent printing over large areas and are ideal for rough or grained papers. The blanket on the cylinder is usually 1.65 or 1.95 mm thick and consists of two, three or four fabric interleaves in addition to the actual covering layer. A distinction is usually made between the conventional blankets, which can be deformed but not compressed, and the compressible, air-cushioned blankets. Standard DIN 16621 sets out the requirements for 'blankets for indirect lithographic printing (offset printing)'.

BLEACHING

A chemical process used to whiten and purify pulp. Bleaching also adds to the sheet's strength and durability.

BLEED

An image or printed colour that extends to the trimmed edges of a page. Bleeding one or more edges usually increases the amount of paper needed and the cost of print production.

BLIND EMBOSSING

An embossed (raised) letter or image presented to a substrate such as paper card, PU material to produce an almost watermarked image without the use of ink or foil.

BLISTERING

Small eruptions in a paper's coating, usually from paper being dried too quickly on high-speed web offset presses.

BLOTTING PAPER

Very absorbent and bulky, woodfree, sometimes made from a pulp of cotton or wool fibres 1 20-300gsm.

BLUE ANGEL

A German environmental label, which covers many products, including paper. It takes a 'cradle to grave' approach, considering manufacture and disposal as well as product use.

BLUEPRINT

In printing, blueprint was the term used for monochrome prints of finished printing copy, owing to their faint blue colour. Today, even corresponding, simple black-and-white prints are generally referred to as blueprints. They serve as proofs for checking the completeness, position and content of the individual graphic elements (texts, images, etc.).

BOARD

Papers of 220 gsm and over are generally called boards. They are most often of more than one ply.

BOD

Biological Oxygen Demand. A measure of the amount of oxygen consumed by micro-organisms in breaking down the organic matter in effluent. Given for a specific period, such as seven days (BOD7).

BOGUS PAPER

Bogus paper is a very simple type of paper that is made exclusively from unsorted waste paper. It usually has a grey, or sometimes brownish tint, and a weight of 80 g/m 2 or more. Bogus paper is primarily used as a starting material for corrugated board.

BOND PAPER

A grade of writing or printing paper generally manufactured for letterheads or forms.

BONDING STRENGTH

The ability for paper fibres to bond to one another. The stronger the bonding, the less likely the fibres are to "pick" or come loose on press. Bonding strength not only affects runnability, it is essential for smooth scoring, folding and special techniques such as engraving and thermography.

BOOK FACE

A book face is another term for the bread-and-butter face used as a font for the standard mass composition of a print product.

BOOK PAPER

A bulkier paper used for bound books. Made both with and without woodpulp.

BOOK PRINTING

Book printing is a general term used for the printing of books and brochures that consist mainly of text and only a few pictures.

BOOKS ON DEMAND

Books on demand are not printed in a production run with a fixed length, but rather are produced and shipped individually on the basis of orders. This method, which is made possible by digital printing, can cut the cost of fairly small run lengths because the expense of storage and unsold copies is eliminated. On the other hand, it is also possible to compile customized books from pre-defined sections.

BRACE

In typography, curly brackets '{ }' are known as a brace.

BREAD-AND-BUTTER TYPE

Or body type is the term used for the type used for the running text of a printed product. The term is said to originate from the days of lead composition when compositors were paid by piecework and earned the majority of their pay with texts in this type.

BRIGHTNESS

The percentage of light in a narrow spectral range reflected from the surface of a sheet of paper. Brightness is not necessarily related to the whiteness of the sheet, but refers to the amount of light reflected back to the viewer. Bright sheets illuminate transparent printing inks and provide cleaner, crisper colours. The reflectance or brilliance of the paper is measured under a specially calibrated blue light.

BRISTOL BOARD

Is paperboard comprising three or more layers, where the outermost layers are wood-free, while the inner material may contain wood. Bristol board is not coated and is therefore a natural paperboard. It is durable and produces good results in offset printing and finishing. Typical fields of application include postcards, envelopes, packaging and art materials.

BRISTOL PAPER

A heavyweight paper made to a calliper of .006" or higher. Used for high quality drawing and sketching pads.

BROCHURE

A brochure consists of a cover stuck or stitched directly to the spine of a single-layer or multi-layer block. The cover generally has the same format as the book block and is made either of material similar to the interior of the brochure or of card. The brochure was originally a temporary form of binding used until the purchaser of a book had opted for a high-quality book cover, which was often very expensive. Nowadays, this binding technique is used as a low-cost mechanical production method of producing the finished print product.

BROKE

Paper or board that is discarded at any stage during its manufacture and is usually repulped. There are 2 kinds - wet broke, which is accumulated at the wet end of the papermaking machine; dry broke which is accumulated at any stage on the dry end of the machine, trimmings from the reeling, slitting and cutting operations, as well as paper or board rejected during sorting.

BROMIDE

Also known as PMT. Photographic light-sensitive paper used to produce positive camera-ready artwork.

BUFFERING

Adding alkaline to paper to balance the pH.

BULK

The number obtained by dividing the thickness, In micrometers of paper or board, by its grammage. i.e. mass per unit volume.

BULKY PAPER

A soft, elastic, extremely thick stock. Also known as thick printing paper.

BURST

An irregular separation or rupture in the web, sometimes roughly parallel to the paper machine direction, but usually in the cross direction. This occurs with reels with very bad level, when the tightness of winding causes the paper to split in an isolated area.

BYTE

The byte is the smallest addressable unit of memory in a computer. A byte consists of eight bits and can thus assume either 28 or 256 different values. Thus the character sets of most languages can be encoded in single byte. The encoding of character sets using two bytes per character (Unicode) is now also playing an increasingly significant role. When combined, two bytes can assume a total of 65,536 (216) different values, enough for all the characters in all of the world's major languages. The capacity of storage media is expressed in multiples of 210 or 1024 bytes: 1 Kbyte = 1024 byte, 1 Mbyte = 1024 Kbyte, 1 Gbyte = 1024 Mbyte etc.