Any form of printing that uses an intermediate carrier to transfer the image from an original to a printing surface (instead of directly from plate to paper). Most commonly used in offset lithography.

A method of plateless printing that sends a digital-based image directly to a variety of media. This can refer to small-run jobs like desktop publishing to large-format and/or high-volume laser or inkjet printers. Digital printing has a higher cost per page but allows for on-demand printing, shorter turnaround times, or the use or variable data for each print run. Also referred to as electronic printing.

To gather or arrange pages in a proper sequence. In bookbinding, collating refers to verifying the correct order of pages.

To compress (or crease) paper along a straight line so it folds more easily. This improves accuracy and reduces the likelihood of paper cracking.

PDF
An acronym for Portable Document File, a universal electronic file format that is device- and resolution-independent. PDF is the preferred file format for sending documents to commercial print houses. If the commercial printer uses PDF imagesetters, no conversion is necessary. If it uses only PostScript hardware, the PDF files are converted to PostScript first.

JPG
Acronym for Joint Photographic Experts Group, which created a standard for color and gray scale image compression (in 1992). JPEG was largely responsible for the proliferation of digital images and photos across the Internet and is the default format for most digital cameras. JPEG typically achieves 10:1 compression with little perceptible loss in image quality. The most common filename extensions for these compressions are .jpg and .jpeg.

A category of paper commonly used for writing, printing, and photocopying. Also called business paper, communication paper, correspondence paper, and writing paper. This paper can be coated or uncoated.

A category of paper commonly used for writing, printing, and photocopying. Also called business paper, communication paper, correspondence paper, and writing paper. This paper gets its name from its use for government bonds. Bond paper only comes uncoated.

A term applied to papers mostly used for the covers of catalogs, brochures, booklets, pamphlets, etc. Also used for business cards and postcards.

Paper having a surface coating that produces a smooth finish. Coated papers are best suited for high quality printing tasks. Paper may be gloss coated, dull-coated, machine-coated, or cast-coated.  Also called “coated stock”.

Paper which has not had a coating (such as varnish or lacquer) applied. Also called offset paper.

The subtractive process colors (cyan, magenta, and yellow) used in CMYK color printing. Black (K) is added to enhance color and contrast. The CMYK color model is also used to describe the printing process itself, because CMYK refers to the four ink plates used in some color printing presses.

An abbreviation for red, green, and blue, the additive color primaries. These colors can be combined (in pairs) to create the secondary colors of cyan, magenta, and yellow, or combined in three equal amounts to produce the color white.

Acronym for Dots Per Inch; a measure of how many dots can be printed in one square inch of paper. The more pixels or dots per inch, the finer the detail in the print will be and the sharper it will look.

A cover that is the same paper stock as the pages inside a booklet.

To bind a booklet or printed material by stapling (or wiring) pages through the spine of folded sheets.  Also called pamphlet stitch, saddle wire, and stitch bind.

An acronym for Tagged Image File Format. This format is used widely in the print and publishing industry. It is a lossless raster file format, so it is great for archiving high-quality images.

Lossy files are files that are compressed in size to be easier to store. This compression is accomplished by deleting data from the image and lowering its quality.

A lossless file is one that is uncompressed. When these types of files are saved, all of the data that is original to the file remains. These files will retain their quality no matter how many times they are saved.

Large format printing, also known as wide format printing, refers to any printing that is too large to be run on most commercial printers. These printers can print anywhere from 18″ to 100″ wide!

Any printing that has a width wider than 100″.

Photoshop is an application that is used to edit raster images. It can be used to alter colors, remove backgrounds, remove blemishes, combine pictures, and much much more!

Adobe Illustrator is the industry standard program for creating and editing vector files. It is used to create logos, signs, and anything you might need to be infinitely scalable.

Adobe InDesign is the industry standard program for multipage documents. InDesign can be used for publications, page layout, typesetting, and much more!

Konica Minolta is one of the worlds leaders in printing and business technology. They produce top of the line print and packaging equipment.

4/0 means that one side of the page is printed using a 4 color process (full color) and the other side is printed with zero colors (blank). The first number is one side of the page and the second number is the other. The number will tell you how many ink colors are being used to produce the print.

Inkjet printing is when a liquid ink is transferred onto a substrate via a printhead.

Laser printing