Common Printing Terms: A Cheat Sheet

While thousands of you have scads of industry experience, thousands of you do not. Every day we're seeing more and more buying novices sign up for our Print Tips, and today, this Tip is for you. Consider this a sort of CliffsNotes® for printing terminology. Here are a few common words and phrases you hear printers sling around, and what they mean.

Web printing - It has nothing to do with the worldwide web. Web printing refers to work produced on large presses that use rolls (webs) of paper, as opposed to paper that's cut into sheets. Web printing is suitable for very large quantities and/or very long runs. So when you overhear "Is this running sheet or web?" you'll know what it means.

Full-color or process color or 4-C (four-color) - refers to using four specific colors: cyan (blue), magenta (red), yellow plus black to reproduce color photos or illustrations. Abbreviated as CMYK. Although a 4-C job usually means using these four process colors, it could mean using 4 spot colors, too. Tricky business.

Substrate - the material that a printer prints on. Usually, it's paper, but nowadays one can print on plastic, fabric, foil and other materials.

Digital printing - as Steve Suffoletto of RIT said in our recent Print Buyer Boot Camp session, "digital printing is any process that can regenerate a new image for each impression or print cycle." The key words are "new image for each impression." Traditional offset presses don't do digital - they print static impressions over and over again.

Trade printers (as in "we print for the trade") - they serve other printers, not you or me.

pURLS - personalized URLs. It's a fairly new application that lets you create a separate URL for each person you're targeting - perhaps in a marketing campaign.

CSR - Customer Service Rep. Works for a printing company. Often, you'll deal with the CSR, not your sales rep, once you give a printer a job.

PMS - stands for Pantone Matching System®. Refers to the standard ink color system used by commercial printers. Ask to see/use a PMS swatchbook when spec'ing ink colors for your job. There are over 1000 solid colors. Plus another 2000+ colors in the new GOE™ System, also by Pantone®. If you can't find a color you want among these 3000+ offerings, there's something seriously wrong.

Makeready - the time/work needed to get a press ready to print your job. Part of the prepress process.

Overs and unders - Only digital presses can literally print the number of pieces you order. Other presses will print extra copies (overs) or even print fewer than you order (unders). Printers can print 10% more or less than the quantity you specify, and charge you accordingly. Just be aware of this common practice, especially if you are printing a huge run and do NOT want 10% over, or if your quantity is dangerously close to what you need (say, for a mailing), in which case you don't want to risk running out. Know that you can specify what percentage of overs/unders you will accept.

Soft proofs - proofs sent to customers from their printers on a computer terminal, as opposed to hard proofs, which are physical proofs you can hold in your hands.

AAs and PEs - Author's Alternations and Printer's Errors. Changes made to a job after it has already been sent to a printer for production. If you (the customer) make changes to your original file, these are AAs and the printer can charge you for making them. If, however, the errors are attributable to the printer, these are PEs and you don't pay for correcting them.

Comments? Talk to me at mdana@bostonprintbuyers.com.

©2008 Margie Dana. All rights reserved. You're free to forward this email to friends and colleagues: please do! However, no part of this column may be reprinted without permission from the author.

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Print Buyer Conference Update

Announcing Guided Tours! September 11th - 12th, 2008

We have recently announced that we'll provide small group tours of the Exhibit Hall at our 3rd Annual Print Buyers Conference in Boston.

Visit www.printbuyersconference.com/notices/PBIexhibitors03-11.html for details.

Questions on exhibiting? Please contact Barbara Graham at exhibitorinfo@printbuyersinternational.com.

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