Resources
The Language of Publishing, A-Z
Ever wonder how in the world pages bleed? When is Java more than a cup of coffee? Do you think CMYK is a knockoff designer clothing label? If publishing terminology is Greek to you, then check out our DCP Marketing Communications Glossary.
To find what you're looking for, click on one of these links, then scroll down the alphabetical listing to find your word or term.
The Language of Publishing, A-E
- Account manager Your chief project strategist at DCP and main contact for strategic issues, pricing and scheduling.
- Art director Person who oversees your publication's design and supervises graphic designers, other design staff, and freelance artists and photographers, as needed.
- Back of the book Final section of a publication. This is the place for clever humor, an impressive photograph or an opinion column that leaves the reader with something to think about.
- Bad breaks Awkward or incorrect word splits at the end of a line of text.
- Bandwidth The rate at which data can be transferred through an electronic communications system. For digital devices, bandwidth is usually measured in bits or bytes per second. When designing a website, bandwidth must be considered. For example, a site with large, ornate graphics and lots of text will "eat up bandwidth" and load more slowly.
- Bleed Printed material that extends to the edge of a sheet or page after trimming. Usually refers to a background color or image.
- Blueline A prepress photographic proof of your print project or document made from stripped negatives. All colors show as blue images on white paper. With computer-to-plate print technologies, bluelines become obsolete because the proof is done digitally.
- Broadband technology A high-speed Internet connection that operates at speeds greater than 128 kilobits per second. Broadband service, such as a cable connection or DSL (digital subscriber line), allows users to download information, including multimedia applications, much faster than they can with dial-up modems.
- Browser An interface to the web that lets you view and navigate sites. Microsoft's Internet Explorer and Netscape's Navigator are two popular web browsers.
- CMYK Acronym for cyan, magenta, yellow and key (black)—the four process colors used in combination to create color images in print. See Four-color process.
- Coated paper Paper with a coating of clay and other substances that improves reflection of light and ink retention. Coatings produce a dull, gloss or matte finish.
- Color separation A technique of using a camera, scanner or computer program to divide color images into their four component halftone negatives. Also, the proof resulting from such color separation, usually produced as four overlays that demonstrate ink coverage in four-color (CMYK) process printing. See also Four-color process.
- Computer-to-plate CTP or direct-to-plate printing Printing technology in which digital data is delivered directly to a plate for printing, thereby eliminating the need for film.
- Content edit The stage of reviewing and enhancing a piece of writing to ensure that it is complete, clear, logical and coherent, as well as grammatically correct and concise.
- Copy editor An expert in spelling, grammar, punctuation, word usage and style who gives writing its final review before production (layout and printing).
- Department A thematic section of a publication that usually runs in the same location from issue to issue.
- Die A device for cutting, scoring, stamping, embossing and debossing paper.
- Die cut To cut irregular shapes in paper or paperboard using a die.
- Dot gain The phenomenon of halftone dots printing larger on paper than they appear on film or plates, which results in reduced detail and lowered contrast. See Halftone.
- Duotone A photograph reproduced in only two colors, or tonal values, as opposed to four.
- Emboss To press an image into paper from the reverse side so it rises above the surface.
- E-zine Short for electronic magazine; a website that is organized and written like a print magazine.
The Language of Publishing, F-L
- FTP Acronym for File Transfer Protocol—a means of copying files between computers across the Internet.
- Feature well The midsection of a publication usually containing in-depth, multipage articles.
- Five W's and an H Short for the six important questions to answer in developing an article: Who? What? When? Where? Why? How?
- Font A complete set of upper- and lowercase characters, numerals, punctuation, and other symbols in one typeface size and style. Courier 12-point is a font; Courier is a typeface; Courier bold is a style.
- Four-color process A printing technique that uses black, magenta, cyan and yellow inks in combination to create full-color images.
- Front of the book: The first section of a publication, usually containing short, tightly written stories on a variety of topics.
- GIF Short for Graphics Interchange Format, a compact file format for graphics that use less than 256 colors. GIF files, a common element on web pages, are usually used to display graphic images such as icons or illustrations instead of photographs. See JPEG.
- Grayscale The values of gray ranging from white to black, usually in 16 steps. Originally, a reference strip used by process camera and scanner operators to calibrate exposure times for film and plates.
- Greek To display text as abstract dots and lines to give a preview of layout; usually used as a verb or adjective ("greeking" or "greeked text"). Greeking is particularly useful when displaying a reduced image of a document in a digital proof.
- HTML Acronym for Hypertext Mark-up Language, the simple code used to define page appearance and content on a website. DHTML is Dynamic Hypertext Mark-up Language and includes embedded scripts for more interactive web pages. See also XML.
- Halftone A photograph or illustration that has been converted into dots.
- Hickey A spot or imperfection in printing caused by dirt on the plate, most visible in areas that require heavy ink coverage, such as photos, illustrations and large type.
- Hot spot A weak area of print caused by a piece of dirt or an air bubble that has prevented ink from covering the contact place completely.
- Imprint To print new copy on a previously printed sheet. Adding an employee's name to preprinted business cards is an example of imprinting.
- Inverted pyramid A structure for ordering information in a news story whereby the key pieces of information go first and other data and details follow in descending order of importance.
- Java A programming language (created by Sun Microsystems) for adding animation and other action to websites.
- JavaScript An easy-to-use programming code for creating interactive documents on web pages. JavaScript is an adjunct to the Java programming language.
- JPEG or JPG A file format for compressed photographic images developed by the Joint Photographic Experts Group committee. JPEGs are popular because of their high quality—they can contain up to 16 million colors—and because they compress photographs better than GIFs, making them smaller and quicker to download.
- Lead or Lede The opening paragraph of an article.
- Leading (pronounced led-ing) The spacing between lines of text, usually measured in points.
- Lineup A list of the articles proposed for a single issue of a publication.
The Language of Publishing, M-R
- Map A diagram that shows the location of all content and advertising slated for one issue of a publication.
- Managing editor The person who directs your publication's editorial aspects and supervises the project editor, copy editor, other editorial staff and freelance writers.
- Mechanical bind To bind printed pages using a comb, coil, ring binder, post or any other technique that does not require gluing, sewing or stitching.
- Menu bar Navigation feature of a website allowing access to other areas of the site by clicking on the representative word or term. Menus bars are usually represented as a graphic feature at the top or down the left side of a web page.
- Metallic ink Ink containing powdered metal or pigments that simulate the appearance of metal.
- Offset printing A common printing technique whereby ink is transferred from a plate to an intermediate blanket cylinder. This offsets, or transfers, an image so that it is not printed directly from the printing plate to the paper.
- Orphan A word or incomplete line of text that appears alone at the bottom of a text column or paragraph. Editors and designers prefer to move such lines back up so that they appear with the whole paragraph.
- PDF Short for Portable Document Format, a document that has been formatted for easy viewing and printing using the Adobe Acrobat program. A designed page of a magazine can be formatted as a PDF and emailed to a client for review.
- Page proof A document showing type and graphics as they will look on the finished page.
- Perfect bind To bind printed pages at the spine by gluing them to the cover.
- Pickup art Artwork used in a previous job that is incorporated into a current job, often to save money or continue design themes.
- Points The common unit of measure used in typography. There are 72 points to the inch.
- Plate A piece of paper, metal, plastic or rubber that carries an image to be reproduced by a printing press. The surface is configured or treated so that only the appropriate areas pick up ink.
- Pour To place copy from a document into a template or page layout program.
- Prepress The stage in the printing process during which designed pages are readied for final printing on press. Color separation, stripping, plate making and other functions take place during this stage.
- Project manager The person at DCP who serves as the service representative and day-to-day contact for a client. This person facilitates communication between the client and the project team, and helps speed the timely exchange of materials and information between the two.
- Proofreader marks Standard symbols and abbreviations used for marking changes and corrections on manuscripts and proofs.
- Pull quote A sentence or part of a sentence that is taken from the text of an article, enlarged and treated as a graphic to call attention to a main point in the body copy.
- Register To properly align multiple plates required in four-color process printing so that they produce sharp, accurate images.
- Resolution The sharpness of an image as it appears on film, paper, the computer screen or other display medium.
- Reversed image Type, a graphic element or an illustration that appears in "negative" for graphic effect.
- RGB An acronym for red, green and blue, the additive color primaries. RGB is used for images on a video monitor (including TVs and computers), whereas CYMK is used for printed images. See CMYK.
- Rule A line used as a graphic element to separate or organize copy.
The Language of Publishing, S-Z
- Saddle stitch To bind by stapling sheets together along the fold at the spine.
- Scanner A device that converts an image into a digital file so that it can be read by, and appear on, a computer.
- Selective binding Placing special signatures or inserts into publications for customers with certain demographic or geographical profiles.
- Sheetfed press A press that prints onto individual sheets of paper rather than onto rolls of paper. See Web press.
- Signature A large sheet of paper that is printed, usually on both sides, then folded and cut to become one part of a publication.
- Specifications or specs The complete and precise written description of all the features of a particular printing job, defining as paper grade and quantity, printing quality, and binding method. Also used for any website or other digital publishing project.
- Spread Two pages that face each other and are designed as one visual or production unit.
- Streaming media A technology for transferring Internet video or audio to one's computer, so that the media can be seen or heard even while the data is still downloading. The data thus "streams" from the media server to the end user's computer.
- Style guide A document detailing how certain words, phrases and punctuation marks are to appear in a particular publication. Style guides are usually based either on The Associated Press Stylebook or The Chicago Manual of Style.
- Template A structural guide or shell that forms the basis for layout, defining items such as column sizes, type styles and image sizes, and sets parameters for other page design issues.
- Typeface A particular style of type, based on a common letterform design that includes a range of styles and weights with a unique name, such as Times, Courier, Helvetica and Garamond. See also Font.
- URL An acronym for Uniform Resource Locator, the global address of a document on the web. An example of a URL is http://www.dcpubs.com/index.html. The middle part, dcpubs.com, is the domain name.
- Varnish Liquid that is applied on paper or cover stock as protection or to provide a glossy appearance.
- Web press A press that prints onto rolls of paper, which are usually cut into sheets after printing. Web presses are the most efficient presses for publications with medium to long printing runs. See Sheetfed press.
- Widow A word or incomplete line that appears alone at the top of a column of text. Editors generally seek to cut text so the widows move back and appear with the rest of the paragraph. See Orphan.
- WYSIWYG (pronounced wizzy-wig) An acronym for What You See Is What You Get. It refers to documents that appear on a display screen exactly the way they will print—showing line breaks, graphics and so forth.
- XML An acronym for Extensible Markup Language. Unlike HTML, XML is a customizable data language that allows you to define or "tag" data so it can be used in various display media, from web pages to PDAs (personal data assistants such as Palm Pilots) to cell phone screens or even print products.