Jul 4 2009

The "New Name" for Pegasus National

Glossary of Terms for
Paper and Printing

"T"

TACK

The stickiness of the printer's ink. Printing inks need to have internal cohesion to sit firmly on the surface of the paper. Too much tack will pull the paper apart.

TAG

A dense, strong paper stock.

TAG PAPER

A heavy, durable paper used to print tags for store product labels.

TCF

Totally Chlorine Free. Paper pulp that is bleached without using chlorine in any form, thus giving an AOX level of zero. The alternative bleaching agents used might be liquid oxygen, hydrogen peroxide or sodium hydroxide.

TEAR STRENGTH

A measure of how likely a paper will continue to tear once started. Tear strength will differ with and against the grain.

TEARING STRENGTH TEST

Strength test of paper designed to show how much force the paper will stand before it tears.

TENSILE STRENGTH

A measure of how likely a paper is to break when pulled at opposite ends. This is very important when running through high-speed web presses. Paper possesses greater tensile strength in its grain direction.

TERMS OF SALE

The agreement between participants as to the conditions of a sale.

TEST-LINER BOARD

Used as the outer layer of a corrugated construction, the material being made partly from chemical pulp and partly from waste paper.

TEXT PAPERS

Text papers are defined as fine, high quality uncoated papers. Typically, they are made in various colours, with numerous textures and a variety of surface finishes. Text papers are made from high-grade bleached wood pulp, cotton fibres or alternative non-wood fibre. Recycled sheets include high quality recycled waste paper and post-consumer waste pulp, in addition to bleached wood pulp, cotton fibres or alternative non-wood fibre.

THERMAL INK/BUBBLE JET

A type of printing during which ink delivery is controlled by a heating element in the print head - as this heats up it boils the ink over the resistor forming a gas bubble (hence bubble-jet), which pushes ink out of the nozzle.

THERMO-MECHANICAL PULP (TMP)

Pulp made by steaming under pressure and at a high temperature, wood chips prior to and during refining, producing a higher yield and stronger pulp than regular groundwood.

THERMOGRAPHY

A process that produces a dimensional effect similar to engraving without the use of expensive dies. Images are given a raised appearance (final image is like an orange peel effect) by dusting a fine resinous powder (matte, gloss or semigloss) over slow-drying ink, then applying heat to melt and fuse the resin onto the ink. Any offset ink colour, or even a clear resin, will work, and the image area can be any size.

THICKNESS CALLIPER

Thickness of paper in millimetres, or thousandths of an inch.

TIFF

Tag Image File Format. A type of file commonly used for transferring bitmapped, greyscale and full colour images between computer applications and/or platforms. These are uncompressed and therefore tend to be large files.

TINT

A lighter variation of a solid colour, created by applying a screen, specified as a percentage of the solid colour.

TISSUE PAPER

Absorbent paper used for a variety of hygienic purposes.

TITANIUM DIOXIDE

A metal compound used as a white pigmentation in papermaking to achieve exceptional opacity, when added to papermaking furnish.

TONE

The lightness or darkness of an image.

TONER

A dispersion of concentrated dye used to manufacture, strengthen or modify the colour of and ink.

TOOTH

A characteristic of paper, a slightly rough finish, which permits it to take up ink readily.

TOPWIRE

An additional wire added to a conventional Fourdrinier papermaking machine, and is a fairly recent development.

It makes a twin-wire machine, but with a difference, only one layer of fibre is produced. The top wire is positioned horizontally on the normal wire and the fibre wire is sandwiched between them. It may have either vacuum or foils to assist in the removal of water, which is its main purpose, and 40% of the total water can be removed.

The advantages are that the paper produced is more even-sided and the machine speed can be increased.

TOUCHPLATE

A fifth plate of ink used to bolster a single colour in four-colour process printing.

TOYO

A colour matching system.

TRACKING

In and electrostatic printer a dirty roller can mark the print, leaving track like marks, sometimes called "tramlines". Also, in electrographic printing, this term refers to side-to-side movement of the media on the printer, caused by the tension in the printer string-up.

TRANSLUCENCY

Ability to transmit light without being transparent.

TRANSPORT

The manner in which paper travels through a printer.

TRAPPING

Printing ink over previously printed ink.

TRIM MARKS/TICK MARKS

Trim marks....Printed lines which fall outside the image area, and indicate where the sheet should be cut. Can also be used as register marks if no others appear. Sometimes called Tick marks.

TRIM SIZE

The final size of the printed piece after it has been cut to specification.

TRIMMING

Cutting sheets after the job has been printed to the specified size of the finished piece. After binding the printed pages, the top, bottom and outer edge of the booklet are often trimmed with a guillotine blade to even out the pages.

TRITONE

A black-and-white image printed with three screens and three colours, such as a black and two greys, to heighten contrast between light and dark areas.

TWIN WIRE MACHINE

Fourdrinier papermaking machines with two wires, instead of a wire and felt side. This assures higher quality when two sides are used for printing.

TWO-SIDEDNESS

The tendency of some papers to have slightly different printing characteristics from side to side.

TYPEFACE (See FONT)

A typeface contains a series of fonts. For instance, Times Bold, Times Italic, and Times Roman are actually 3 fonts (even though people often refer to one entire font family as a "font.")