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ISO Paper Sizes
The international standard for paper sizes used in most countries except the good old USA. Since most software is written in the USA, many programs do not automatically use the ISO sizes. The ISO standard defines 'A' sizes which are generally used for printing, drafting and so on and based on progressive subdivision of an 'A0' sheet (1189x841mm). 'B' sizes are based on a larger basic sheet size of 1414x1000mm.
A0 1189 841 B0 1414 1000
A1 841 594 B1 1000 707
A2 594 420 B2 707 500
A3 420 297 B3 500 353
A4 297 210 B4 353 250
A5 210 148 B5 250 176
A6 148 105 B6 176 125
A7 105 74 B7 125 88
A8 74 52 B8 88 62
A9 52 37 B9 62 44
A10 37 26 B10 44 31
Italic
A 'slanted' version of a typeface often with a hand written look, used as a companion to normal or roman type. It is in fact an separate font, definitely not just slanted type.
Justified
An alignment scheme that uses word spacing and hyphenation to align the left and right hand sides of a column of type. Used extensively in newspapers, books and magazines. Justified type looks neater on a page layout but is usually slightly harder to read than non justified type.
Kerning
See also tracking. The fine adjustment between letter pairs to enhance appearance and readability. Usually done by hand at a large magnification on the screen.
Laser Printer
See also Bubblejet. A desktop printer that produces an image onto plain paper using a laser beam and photosensitive drum similar to a photocopier. Some laser printers run the Postscript language, making them ideal for proofing jobs that will be run on an imagesetter. Laser printers can sometimes be used to produce artwork for low quality printing but do not produce good quality halftones or tints or type at small sizes.
Layout
The arrangement of type and graphic elements on a page to best advantage.
Letterpress Printing
Method of printing where the image is transferred from a raised metal or plastic printing plate to the paper by pressing the plate against the paper. An ink roller applies a fresh coating of ink to the plate before each sheet of paper passes through the press. Printing quality not as good as but capable of printing on very small sheets of paper. Popular for wedding stationery. Letterpress machines can also be used for embossing and other specialised operations not possible with offset printing equipment.
Leading
Also known as line spacing. The spacing between baselines of lines of type. Correct leading is a key factor in readability, generally the more leading the better in body type, but reduce it in all caps headlines.
Ligature
Two letters written or printed as one character. Used in some European typesetting e.g 'a' and 'e' joined to produce a combined character 'æ'. These characters are usually accessed with escape sequences from DTP programs.
Line Art
An image that consists only of solid black and solid white areas i.e. it has no continuous tone or coloured areas. Line art is suitable to use directly as artwork for printing. Lineart can be represented electronically as a 1 bit black and white bitmap.
Margin
The white space around a column of type or around an entire page. Margins set off type in the same way that a frame sets off a picture.
Mask
A sheet of material that blocks the passage of light. Is often used in pre-press when manually preparing colour separations. It may be a white paper mask that is cut to allow an image below to show through when being photographed, or a rubylith mask that is cut and peeled back to allow light to pass through when making contact exposures from negatives. A mask is used to subtract from an image, wheras an adds to an image.
Modern
Type designs which moved away from the shapes of letters formed by calligraphy pens to purely invented shapes. Modern typefaces have strong contrast, abrupt transition between thick and thin strokes and vertical and horizontal accents.
Old Style
Typeface designs developed in the fifteenth to eighteenth centuries such as Bembo, Garamond, Janson and Caslon.
Negative
A sheet of clear film with a very opaque black coating called an emulsion which carries an image. Negative film carries an image in the clear areas where light can pass through. Is used in platemaking by being put in contact with a photosensitive plate and exposed to a bright light source. The areas of the plate that receive light through the negative will carry ink on the press and create the final printed image. Negatives are used to produce "metal" plates for offset printing and "nylo" plates for letterpress printing.
Offset Printing
Method of printing where the image is transferred from a plate to the paper by "offsetting" onto a rubber blanket roller. Relies on the ink being attracted to sensatised areas of the printing plate and being repelled by water. Ink and water are applied to the plate by a system of rollers, this results in an inked image building up on the blanket roller which is then pressed firmly against the paper as it passes through the press, transferring the image onto the paper. Can produce very high quality, detailed printed result.
Overlay
See also mask. In manual artwork preparation an overlay sheet is taped to a sheet of base artwork to provide a colour separation. The overlay may be a transparent sheet so that you can visualise the positioning of the separation against the artwork below. If transparent sheets are to be photographed for platemaking they should have their emulsion "down" (image on the underside of the sheet) so as not to cast shadows when exposed.
Pica
See also point. The traditional typographer's unit of measure, There are 12 points to the pica and six picas to the inch. This is giving way to millimetres in the modern DTP world, but some designers still specify line lengths in picas.
Pixel
Picture Element - an individual point in a raster image. depending upon the type of image a pixel may be a point of black or white, a level of grey or a colour.
Point
The traditional measure of a typeface size. There are 72 points in one inch. In the hi-tech digital/metric world this measure has remained. Those who delve into postscript programming will find that all measurements are defined in points.
Positive
A sheet of clear film with a very opaque black coating called an emulsion which carries an image. Positive film carries an image in the black areas that light can't pass through. Is used in platemaking by being put in contact with a photosensitive plate and exposed to a bright light source. The areas of the plate that don't receive light through the positive will carry ink on the press and create the final printed image. Positives are most commonly used to produce screens for .
Postscript
A printer control language developed by Adobe Systems. It is a resolution independent page description language which allows devices of different resolution to process the same print file and produce the same result to as good a quality level as the individual printer is capable of. Thus you can send a proof of a job to a postscript laser printer before sending to an imagesetter and be assured that the layout of the final job will look the same as the laser print. It is the invention of the postscript language that allowed desktop publishing to become a reality, prior to this each typesetting machine was controlled by a dedicated language and files to run the typesetter could only be prepared using terminals attached to the dedicated computer system driving the typesetting machine.
Pre-press
The tasks involved in preparing a print job up to the point of plate making. Includes the final preparation of artwork and/or negatives from materials supplied by the customer.
Process Camera
A large camera used in graphic art to enlarge and reduce artwork and make negatives, and bromides. An instant printing platemaker is a modified version of a process camera. Powerful lights at the side of the camera shine onto the artwork for a controlled amount of time to make the exposure on film.
Proof
The process of checking artwork or negatives before printing to ensure all aspects of a job are correct. The final proof should be signed by the customer before printing commences. A proof is usually made by a similar process to platemaking.
Proof Reading
The checking of typesetting and layout against the original copy provided by the customer. Traditionally this was a specific trade carried out by trained person, special companies exist that do just proof reading. The final proof should always be approved by the customer before printing commences.
Pull-Quotes
Phrases or quotes isolated from body copy and set off in quotes or other display type treatment. Often used in magazines to attract a readers attention to an article.
Redline
A method of electronically marking up a document with corrections and comments. Is named because traditionally this was done using a red pen.
Raster
A pattern of pixels that creates an image. A scanner creates a raster image, computer monitors and printers display a raster image. The higher the resolution the clearer the image is to the eye.
Rasterise
The process of creating a raster image. Most commonly this refers to the job done by a printer controller in converting page description commands into a final image. The computer that performs this job is called a Raster Image Processor or RIP for short.
Resident
A font that is permanently stored in a printer's memory, thus it does not have to be downloaded, leading to faster printout times. Imagesetters have the capability to hold hundreds of resident fonts, most postscript lasers have 35 resident fonts (13 typefaces).
Resolution
The density measured as number of pixels per inch or centimetre in a bitmapped image or device. The higher the resolution, the higher sharpness or clarity of the image produced.
Registration
The process of aligning successive colour separations of a printed job onto the paper such that they line up exactly. Mechanical tolerances in the printing press and paper expansion limit how precisely registration is achieved.
Registration Marks
Alignment marks that appear outside the image area on all colour separations of a job to help the press operator check that each successive colour is in register with the last. Some DTP programs include a colour called "registration" to aid in producing your own registration marks. Most DTP packageges automatically generate registration marks when printing separations.
Reverse
White type on a black background, or anything white that 'cuts out' of a background colour or tint.
Roman
See also bold italic.Upright, non slanted type, the basic font in a typeface, usually refers to serif type rather than sans-serif.
Rubylith
Also known as "ruby", a sheet of clear acetate or plastic with a thin, stripable coating of red plastic bonded to the top. A shape for a mask or overlay can be cut with a scalpel, and the unwanted areas peeled away to leave a solid area. The red areas appear as black to a platemaking camera, and are opaque to the light used for making contact exposures from negatives. Amberlith is a similar material with an orange rather than red coating, and is used for identical purposes.
Rule
Another name for a line, you can normally control the thickness of a rule to be a certain point size.
Sans-serif
See also serif. Typeface designs designed with out finishing strokes or serifs. They have straight stems and monotone lines. Helvetica, Arial and Futura are examples of sans-serif typefaces.
Scanner
A device that converts an image, usually a photograph into a computer readable data file. Scanners for pre-press use often have a high resolution and a high sensativity to colour changes in the original photograph.
Screen Printing
A method of printing where ink is transferred onto the job by being forced through a fine mesh screen. The screen is pre-treated with a coating so that ink can only pass through the areas of the screen where an image is required. The ink coating thickness is much greater than with other forms of printing, and it is possible to print on a wide variety of objects, not just paper. Everything from plastic sheets for signs and stickers, fridge magnets, clothing, fabric and souvenir items. Some screen printing inks are suitable for outdoor use so is good for vehicle signage, bumper stickers and so on.
Script
Typeface design based on ornate calligraphic look. Typically used on wedding invitations, ornate restaurant menus and so on.
Serif
See also sans-serif slab-serif.. A finishing stroke on the end of the stem of a letter. Can vary in size from slabs as thick as the stem, to razor thin flicks at the end if a letter. Times, Garamond and Goudy are all serif typefaces.
Sidebar
A short article that relates to a main body of text, often boxed or on a tinted background on the same page as the main text.
Slab-serif
See also serif sans-serif A typeface that overall looks like a sans serif font as it has the straight stems and monotone lines of a sans serif, but serifs have been added to the typeface, usually in the same weight as the stems. Courier and Lubalin are examples of slab serif typefaces.
Small caps
Uppercase letters traditionally set to the x-height. of the text size.
Stem
In typeface design an upright stroke in a letter or character.
Stress
In typeface design the variation between the thick and thin strokes of a type character.
Small caps
Uppercase letters traditionally set to the x-height. of the text size.
Terminals
Ends of certain letter shapes that are nor serifs, such as a, f, j, r,y.
Thumbnail
A small rough representation of a layout to help visualise a design .
Tint
An area of partial colour which is made up of a fine pattern of dots on the printed page.
Tracking
See also kerning a typesetting adjustment that alters the spacing between all letters in a paragraph to make them tighter or looser.
Transitional
Typeface designs created in the late eighteenth century. Serifs were lightened, vertical stress was strengthened and and general fineness of detail increased leading to the modern designs of the next century.
Type family
A related collection of type fonts in various weights and versions. Stone is a very large type family that includes both serif and sans serif fonts.
Typeface
A design interpretation - often named after the designer of a complete characterset including numerals, punctuation and symbols in various weights and styles.
Typesetting
The process of formatting type for a layout. When done correctly readability of the type is maximised by correct and best use of the various formatting options available including leading, tracking and kerning.
Unical
A large rounded ancient letterform used in Greek and Latin script; a forerunner to the lowercase alphabet.
White Space
Blank space with no type or other design elements. Is not always white, but is free of other design elements. White space itself is a necessary design element to stop a layout looking too cramped.
x-height
The body size, excluding ascender and descender, of a letter (i.e. the height of a lowercase "x" in a typeface.
DTP Glossary
