We take great pride in making our clients feel comfortable and confident about their printing jobs during the production process. To help you gain a better understanding of what's happening to your project, we've compiled a glossary of common (and not so common) printing terms.

• Abrasion Resistance

  The resistance to scratching of a surface of paper by other paper surfaces or other materials.

• Back Lining

  The fixing of a material, either paper or cloth, to the back of a book before it is bound. Reference: case binding.

• Cable Paper

  A strong paper used to wrap electrical cables

• Dahlgren

  A dampening system for printing presses which utilizes more alcohol (25%) and less water; this greatly reduces the amount of paper that is spoiled.

• Eggshell Finish

  The finish of paper surface that resembles an eggshell achieved by omitting the calendar process. Reference: calendar rolls.

• F&G

  A term in the binding process referring to folding and gathering.

• Gang

  Group of frames or impositions in the same form of different jobs arranged and positioned to be printed together.

• Hairline Register

  Printing registration that lies within the range of plus or minus one half row of dots. It is the thinnest of the standard printers' rules.

• IBC

  Inside back cover.

• Jacket

  The paper cover of hardbound book, sometimes called the "dust cover."

• Kerning

  The narrowing of space between two letters so that they become closer and take up less space on the page.

• Lacquer

  A clear gloss coating applied to printed material for strength, appearance and protection.

• M Weight

  The actual weight of 1,000 sheets of any given size of paper.

• Natural

  A term to describe papers that have a color similar to that of wood; also called cream, off-white or ivory.

• OA of Register

  When two-sheet passes on a press are misaligned.

• Page

  One side of a leaf.

• Rag Paper

  Papers with a complete or partial content of cotton fibers.

• Saddle Stitching

  Stitching where wire staples pass through the spine from the outside and are clinched in the center. Only used with folded sections, either single sections or two or more sections inserted to form a single section.

• Tack

  The adhesive quality of inks.

• Uncalendared

  Papers that are not smoothed by going through the calendaring process.

• Vacuum Frame

  Also called a contact frame; used in the platemaking process to hold materials in tight contact during exposure.

• W&B

  An abbreviation for work and back. Reference: sheetwise.

• Xerographic Paper

  Papers made to work well in copy machines and laser printers.

• Yield Value

  The actual amount of force needed to start an ink flowing.