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6th October 2016

Get Perfect Print Materials with Our Jargon Buster

9
minute read

It’s a common problem: you want some printed materials produced but every time you speak to the printer you’re overwhelmed by all the lingo. It can be tempting to just give up and stick to what you know, rather than trying to figure out what all that jargon means.

Here's our jargon buster to help you get perfect print materials - whether that's newspaper advertising, flyers, business cards and more.

A Sizes

These are the most common paper sizes used in UK printing. You may recognise A4 from the standard white paper used in printers, but there’s plenty more sizes which are sometimes more suitable for flyers, posters and leaflets.

A general rule of thumb is the lower the A number, the bigger the size. The image below shows exact measurements for each A size paper.

A sizes

Artwork

The finalised design that is ready to be used by the printer. Before starting any work, you should ask your printer if they have particular requirements that you need to adhere to. This will include things such as the file type you must provide the work in (e.g. JPEG, PDF), if it requires bleed, crop marks etc. (these are explained below if you’re unfamiliar with them). If the printer hasn’t set a format for you, check with them that the format you plan on providing will work for them. The last thing you want is a delay on a print deadline!

Bleed

It isn’t possible to print all the way to the edge of a paper sheet, so it’s necessary to leave a ‘bleed’. This is the margin left around a printed design that is later trimmed off. It’s really important to include bleed space as otherwise your design can get chopped off! You’ll also need to check these requirements with your printer, as often these will change depending on the purpose and size of the print material.

Bulk

The thickness of paper stock. This is useful to know when you’re printing different marketing materials: for example, a business card you want customers to keep might need to be thicker than a flyer. A standard flyer is usually between 130gsm and 170gsm, and a good thickness for a business card is around 300gsm (gsm explained further down).

CMYK

CMYK is an acronym for the colour model used in printing and are what make up a printed image. There are several different colour models, but when creating a print ad you will need to use CMYK colours.

Collating

Bringing together and organising items for print in a specific order. This is especially important for printed items with multiple pages, so the information appears in the right order. The easiest way to do this is by ensuring that everything you want printing as part of a single document is consolidated and ordered correctly into one document before printing.

Crop Marks

Also known as trim marks, these are lines printed in the corner of a sheet of paper to show where it should be cut. Just like bleed, it’s important to know where these go so your design doesn’t accidentally get cut off.

DPI

DPI tells you how sharp an image is - the higher the DPI, the better quality the image will be. For print, your image should be a minimum of 300DPI, to ensure a high quality finish.

Duplex

A digital printing term which means printing on both sides of the paper.

Finishing

This is everything that happens to your printed material after printing, including folding, laminating and binding. Check whether your printer includes ‘finishing’ or if it’s an extra service. For example, if you decide to get some printed menus made which come in a card folder, you might need to do the ‘finishing’ – folding the card and inserting the menu – yourself, which can take a lot of time. If you would like the printer to do the ‘finishing’, make this clear in your initial brief to them, so that they know exactly what they need to produce for you.

Four colour process

This means full colour printing using the four CMYK colours: Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black.

Gloss coating

Gloss coating is a varnish which is applied to printed materials. It gives a brighter appearance to the colours and protects against smudging. It can also be used as a ‘spot gloss’ where the coating is only applied to certain areas of print to highlight it.

GSM

GSM (grams per square metre) is the standard paper weight measurement. The higher the GSM, the heavier the paper (and generally more expensive). If you’re printing letterheads, try 110-120gsm; for posters, flyers and leaflets use a weight between 130gsm and 170gsm; for business cards, something between 300gsm and 400gsm works well.

Insert

Loose printed material such as a flyer or leaflet that is inserted into a magazine, brochure or similar.

JPEG

This is an image format often used online because it’s a smaller file but is often not sharp enough for printed materials. It would therefore be better to use a different image format (for example a PNG or EPS) which tend to be better quality to avoid any issues.

Landscape

In printing, this refers to printed material where it is wider than it is long. Some examples include business cards and banners.

Matt varnish

A varnish applied to give a printed surface a smooth, non-glossy appearance. This also protects it from smudging, just like a gloss varnish.

PDF

This is a kind of file that combines images and text into a single file which can’t be edited by the recipient. You’ll have probably used PDFs to send invoices to customers, or if you’re downloading documents online. Printers might ask for your artwork in a PDF as it’s easier to send it online. As it can’t be edited, make sure that the design has been thoroughly checked and signed off before saving as a PDF and sending to the printers.

Perforation

These are small dots run into the paper so it can be easily torn out. You might use perforation in a book of vouchers so customers can tear them out.

Pixel

One pixel is a very small square of colour - thousands of these are what make up an entire image that you see on screen or in print. The more pixels per inch an image contains, the better quality it is.

Portrait

In printing, this refers to printed material where it is longer than it is wide. Some examples might include a menu or services list.

Print ready

If something is ‘print ready’, it means a file is ready to go straight to print. Most printers will need you to send them a print ready file, but some of them will help you to make your design ready to be printed.

Proof

A proof is a version of a printed item that is then checked for errors or problems with the printing, before the final version is produced. Proofing is also the process of checking for mistakes in text, colour, or quality.

Resolution

When someone says an image is high-res or low-res, it refers to whether it is high, or low resolution (i.e image quality). The higher the resolution, the sharper and more professional it will appear.

Sealer varnish

A coating applied to your finished print product to protect it.

Typo

Typo is slang for ‘typographical error’ – a mistake in the text used in printing, which is normally picked up at the proofing stage. Make sure you do a thorough check for typos before giving the printers the go ahead.

The above should get you on your way to having conversations with print houses about your requirements. However, if you stumble upon a term you haven’t come across before, or you’re unsure of what something is and the importance of it, ask your print house who will always be able to advise.

For more tips on print advertising, and how it can form part of your marketing efforts, try these articles:

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