A plain-English glossary of print production terms

Print has its own dialect. Spend long enough around a press and "bleed", "rich black" and "saddle stitch" stop sounding strange — but the first time someone asks for your artwork at 300 dpi with 3 mm bleed and outlined fonts, it can feel like a foreign language.

Here's a plain-English glossary of the terms we use day to day in the studio. Bookmark it, send it to a junior, or skim it before your next briefing call.

A

• AI file — Adobe Illustrator's native format. Mostly vector (infinitely scalable) but can carry raster images and multiple layers. The format of choice for logos and packaging dielines.
• Anti-aliasing — The smoothing applied to the edges of raster shapes and type so they don't look stepped. Helpful on screen, irrelevant on a high-resolution press.
• Artwork — The print-ready file: design, copy, dieline, marks and links all in one place, ready to ship to the printer.

B

• Bespoke order — A job that falls outside standard specs (unusual size, finish or substrate) and needs custom pricing and a custom proof.
• Bleed — Extra artwork extending past the trim edge, usually 3 mm, so any tiny shift in cutting doesn't reveal a white sliver. An A4 print with bleed is supplied at 303 × 216 mm, not 297 × 210 mm.
• Border — A clear margin (often white) framing your design, keeping content away from the trim edge. Not the same as bleed — bleed extends past the trim, a border sits inside it.
• Bulk pricing — The per-unit price falls as the run length rises. Most of the cost of a print job is in setup; the more you print, the cheaper each piece becomes.

C

• C-fold — The most common tri-fold: two parallel folds, six panels (three each side), panels tuck into each other like a C.
• Choke and spread — Tiny adjustments where two colours meet, so a hairline of paper doesn't show through if the registration drifts. Also called trapping.
• CMYK — Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Key (black). The four-colour process every digital and litho press is built around. Files for print should be supplied in CMYK.
• Colour mode (or colour space) — The palette your file lives in. CMYK for print, RGB for screen. Design in the wrong one and colours shift when the file is converted.
• Crop marks — Small lines just outside the trim that tell the cutter where to slice. Always sit outside the bleed.
• Cut lines — Magenta vector lines (not shapes) on a separate layer that tell a die-cutter or laser where to cut. Required for custom shapes.

D

• Dieline — The flat template of a folded or constructed piece (a carton, a folder, a book cover) showing every cut, crease and fold. Always supplied by the printer or converter — never invented from a flat sample.
• Die cut — A cut that goes all the way through the paper to a custom shape, made with a steel rule die.
• Digital printing — Print straight from a digital file, no plates. Fast, cheap on short runs, perfect for proofs and short bursts of stock.
• DPI — Dots Per Inch. How densely a press lays down ink. 300 dpi at final size is the industry baseline for crisp images.

E

• Embed — Including linked images and fonts inside the file rather than pointing to them. If they aren't embedded, they go missing the moment the file leaves your machine.
• EPS — Encapsulated PostScript. An older but still common vector format, often used for logos.

F

• File type — The format you export to: PDF, AI, EPS, TIFF, JPEG, PNG and so on. Each has different strengths; print-ready almost always means PDF.
• Finished size — The dimensions of the printed piece after trimming.
• Foil (hot / cold) — A metallic or pigmented film stamped onto paper using heat (hot foil) or adhesive (cold foil). Adds shine and tactility — think luxury packaging and high-end invites.
• Font — A specific cut of a typeface — Helvetica Neue Bold 12 pt is a font; Helvetica Neue is the typeface. The terms are often used interchangeably and nobody minds.
• Full bleed — Artwork that runs right off the edge of the trimmed page.
• FSC® — Forest Stewardship Council. Certifies paper from responsibly managed forests; the logo can be added when the stock and the printer are both certified.

G

• Gang run — Multiple jobs printed together on a single sheet to share setup costs. Great for budget; less control over individual colour.
• GSM — Grams per Square Metre. A measure of paper weight, used loosely as a proxy for thickness. Letterhead is typically 100 gsm; business cards 350 gsm and up.
• Grayscale — A single-channel mode containing only shades of grey, used when colour isn't needed.

H

• Hairline rule — A line so thin (typically under 0.25 pt) it may break up or disappear on press. Anything finer than 0.25 pt should be thickened before sending to print.
• Heavy ink coverage — Large solid areas of colour. Can leave the sheet feeling tacky, prone to set-off, and slightly sheen depending on substrate.
• Hex value — A six-character web colour code (e.g. #FF6B35). Useful on screen, meaningless to a press — convert to CMYK or a Pantone spot before print.

I

• ICC profile — A small data file that describes how a specific device reproduces colour. Embedding the right one keeps colour predictable from screen to proof to press.
• Imposition — The arrangement of pages on a printer's sheet so that, once folded and trimmed, they appear in the right order. Handled by the printer, but worth knowing about for booklets.

J

• JPEG / JPG — A compressed raster format, great for photos, lossy by nature. Not ideal for logos or sharp-edged graphics, and not suitable as the only format for a print master.

K

• K value — The black channel in CMYK, expressed as a percentage. 100% K is pure single-channel black — the right choice for small body copy.
• Kiss cut — A cut that goes through the top layer of a sheet but not the backing, used for peelable stickers.

L

• Lamination — A thin film applied to a printed sheet for protection or finish. Matte, gloss and soft-touch are the common flavours.
• Litho printing — Offset lithography. Plates transfer ink to a rubber blanket, then to paper. The workhorse of medium-to-long print runs, with excellent colour fidelity.

M

• MOQ — Minimum Order Quantity. The smallest run a printer or supplier will take on.
• Mockup — A visual simulation of the finished product, often used for client sign-off before going to press.

O

• Orientation — Portrait (taller than wide) or landscape (wider than tall).
• Outline fonts — Type converted into vector shapes so the recipient doesn't need the font installed. Once outlined, the text can't be re-edited — outline a copy, not your master.
• Overprint — Printing one colour directly on top of another instead of knocking it out. Used deliberately on rich blacks, whites and varnishes; accidental overprint is a common pre-press bug.

P

• Packaged file — A folder containing the working file plus every linked image and font. The professional way to hand off a project.
• Pantone (PMS) — A standardised spot-colour system used worldwide. If a brand specifies "Pantone 485 C", the press mixes that exact ink rather than trying to build it from CMYK.
• PDF/X — A subset of PDF specifically built for reliable print exchange. Saves headaches; ask your printer which flavour (X-1a, X-4) they prefer.
• Perfect bound — A binding method where pages are glued into a wrap-around cover, giving a flat spine. Used on magazines, catalogues and paperbacks.
• PNG — Lossless raster format with transparency. Great for the web; not for press — it doesn't support CMYK.
• PP (printed pages) — The number of printed page faces in a multi-page document. A booklet with 16 pp has 16 page sides, or 8 sheets back-to-back.
• PPI — Pixels Per Inch. The resolution of a digital file at its current size. Often used interchangeably with DPI.
• Pre-press — Everything between approved design and ink hitting paper: file checks, colour management, imposition, plate or RIP setup.
• Pre-flight — The automated check a printer (or you) runs on a file to flag issues: low-res images, wrong colour spaces, missing fonts, overprint surprises.
• Print preview — A render of how the uploaded artwork will sit on the page once trimmed. The last line of defence before you click order.
• Proof — A representative sample of the print before the full run starts. Could be a digital PDF proof, a calibrated wet proof, or a press proof. Approve it carefully — once it's signed off, that's what gets printed.
• PSD — Photoshop's layered raster format. Fine as a working file, not as a print master.

R

• Raster — An image made of pixels. Photographs are raster. Scale them up and you see the dots.
• Rasterise — Convert a vector image into pixels. Useful for editing in Photoshop; one-way once done.
• Registration — How accurately the different ink colours line up on the press. Bad registration shows as colour fringing.
• Registration black — 100% of all four CMYK channels stacked together. Used only on tiny registration marks; never use it for body type — it floods the paper.
• Resolution — The amount of detail an image holds, measured in PPI or DPI. 300 dpi at final print size is the floor for sharp output.
• RGB — Red, Green, Blue. The colour space of screens, built from light. Wider gamut than CMYK, which is why vivid screen colours can dull when printed.
• Rich black — A CMYK black with extra cyan, magenta and yellow added to deepen the tone, typically 60/40/40/100. Use for large solid blacks. Don't use for small text.
• Risograph — A stencil-based duplicator that prints one spot colour at a time, layer by layer. Loved by indie publishers for its grainy, screen-printed feel.
• RIP — Raster Image Processor. The software that converts your PDF into the dot pattern the press actually fires.

S

• Saddle stitch — Binding with wire staples through the folded spine. Cheap, fast and lies flat; works up to roughly 64 pages depending on stock.
• Safe area — The zone inside the trim where critical content (logos, copy, faces) should sit, well clear of any potential trim shift. Usually 3–5 mm in from the trim.
• Self-cover — A booklet whose cover is the same stock as its inside pages. Cheaper than a heavier cover; less premium feel.
• Set-off — Ink from a freshly printed sheet transferring to the back of the sheet stacked on top of it. Prevented with anti-set-off spray or careful drying.
• Spot colour — A pre-mixed ink (often a Pantone) used in place of, or alongside, CMYK. Essential for brand colours that can't be hit in process, fluorescents, metallics and whites.
• Spot UV — A clear, glossy varnish applied to a chosen area only — a logo, a headline — usually contrasted against a matte surface. Highly tactile.
• Stock — The paper or board you're printing on. Coated, uncoated, recycled, textured, board, kraft — each behaves differently with ink.
• Substrate — Anything you're printing onto, paper or otherwise (board, vinyl, fabric, tin).

T

• TAC (Total Area Coverage) — The sum of all four CMYK percentages in the heaviest area of your design. Exceed the printer's limit (often 280–320%) and ink can fail to dry, smudge or crack.
• Tolerance — The acceptable variance a printer allows in trimming or registration — typically ±1 mm to ±1.5 mm. Design with it in mind.
• Trapping — Tiny deliberate overlaps where two colours meet, hiding any registration drift. See choke and spread.
• Typeface — The family (Helvetica Neue, Garamond, Inter). The specific weights and styles inside it are fonts.

U

• Uncoated — Paper with no surface coating. Softer, more textured, more absorbent — colours sit slightly duller and warmer than on a coated stock.
• UV printing — Inks cured instantly under UV light. Can print on substrates that would otherwise reject ink, including plastics and metals.

V

• Variable data printing (VDP) — Digital print where each piece can carry different content — names, addresses, codes — pulled from a data source. Direct mail, personalised packaging, ticketing.
• Varnish — A clear coating applied over the print for protection or finish (matte, gloss, satin, spot). Distinct from lamination, which is a film.
• Vector — A graphic built from points, lines and curves rather than pixels. Scales to any size without quality loss. Logos and type should live as vector.
• Vectorise — Convert a raster image into a vector by tracing it. Sometimes automatic, often best done by hand.

W

• WeTransfer — Browser-based file sharing for files too big for email. Other equivalents: Dropbox, Google Drive, MASV.
• White ink — A pre-mixed spot white used to print on dark, transparent or coloured substrates. Doesn't exist in standard four-colour process.

Z

• Z-fold — A tri-fold where the panels fold in alternating directions, forming a Z when viewed from the side.

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