Glossary of Printing Terms:G

Giga

Represents one billion.

The Graphic Arts Association

The Graphic Arts Association is the only regional trade association for the printing industry in eastern and central Pennsylvania, southern New Jersey and Delaware. The mission of the Graphic Arts Association is to be the leading resource for the printing and graphic communications industry in advocacy, education, and information to enhance the strength and profitability of its members.

http://www.gaa1900.com/

1. The earliest printing of a work used by the proofreader and author to check for errors. Galleys are often printed on long continuous strips of paper.

Sometimes the term is used interchangeably, although incorrectly, with the term advance reading copy.

Also known as galley proof. See also proofs.

1. Typeset text in a one-column format, that is used as a proof before being divided into pages and the addition of running headings, etc.

The difference in the status of the color curve in electronic color correction. The color curve represents highlight to shadow values between current values and corrected values. Changing the color curve (making a gamma correction) increases or decreases the highlights, midtones, or shadows relative to the other points on the curve.

Refers to a range of colors that can be displayed or printed. The human eye can see a much wider spectrum of colors than the gamut available in any color model.

Grouping related jobs using same paper and inks. Grouping more than one job on a single plate.

The combining of different jobs to be manufactured at the same time to take advantage of production economies. Jobs are generally similar in size, paper, ink colors and have the same special features.

1. Grouping art or photographs together for scanning rather than scanning each one separately.

2. To print two or more finished products on the same sheet during one press run

When both sides of an oversize page fold into the gutter in overlapping layers.

Computer hardware and software that translate or link two different application programs or networking protocols such as allowing users on different e-mail systems to exchange messages.

Graphic Arts Technical Foundation

Based in the USA, The GATFnstituted the InterTech Technology Awards in 1978 as an industry service to promote an understanding of advanced technology in the graphic arts.

Based in Sewickley, Pennsylvania and active in the printing industry. In 1999 the organization merged with the Printing Industries of America (PIA) and now has some 14,000 members in 60 different countries.

.

Inserting the printed pages, sections or signatures of a book in the correct order for binding.

General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade

The wide-ranging international agreement to facilitate the free movement of goods throughout the world. TRIPS is that part relating to intellectual property rights and is an abbreviation for Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights.

An ‘engraved’ design on the edges of a book.

A tool used to give images, graphics and photos a blurred or softened look. It is often used in the design of background graphics, which seem to be cushioned into the background.

Gigabyte

Equals 1,073,741,824 bytes. 1 gigabyte of storage equals 1000 megabytes of storage.

General Books Council

A division of the Publishers Association concerned with general, or trade, publishing.

See Comb Binding

Graphic Communications Association

Former name of the International Digital Enterprise Alliance (IDE Alliance).

Gray Component Replacement

A technique used in the color separation process that replaces the neutral gray portion in cyan, magenta, and yellow with black. Instead of the cyan, magenta and yellow to producing these grays, they are produced with the black ink.

GCR will deepens the shadow areas of an image that lacks depth and reduces the amount of ink required which speeds up drying time. Colors are easier to maintain throughout the run and may produce a more pleasing printed product.

A handy reference compilation of the various printing lengths, or repeats obtainable within the different gearing systems.

See driving side.

In printing, parallel streaks appearing across the printed sheet at same interval as gear teeth on the cylinder.

Were used from the early 1880s and are still in production today. A generic term referring to prints coated with silver salts.

Paper is coated with gelatine containing halides; sodium bromide is now universally used. The exposed bromides are converted to silver bromide by chemical development producing black and white prints of various tones of black through to white in different degrees of contrast.

Digital Research’s Graphics Environment Manager

A graphical interface designed both to make the operation of software simpler for the non-expert and to allow programs to communicate with one another.

Two key desktop publishing packages, Ventura and DR’s own GEM Desktop Publisher operate under this environment.

Each succeeding stage in reproduction from the original copy.

A computer program that constructs data that is input to other programs so that they can perform a particular operation; e.g., a report program generator.

A category of a certain type of writing, such as horror, romance, mystery, science fiction, and so forth.

A finish applied to paper by means of marking felts while the paper web is still very wet. These felts impart their distinctive textures by gently rearranging the paper fibers. This creates a soft, resilient, textured surface suitable for printing and relief operations.

A translucent image created in the paper on the paper machine, with the use of a dandy roller. Also referred to as a true watermark.

Characteristics relating to the geographic region that a group of people live in and the demographic of that group.

A lightly printed halftone that will have solid copy printed over it.

A professional writer who writes for another person and who does not get a byline or credit for his or her writing.

A faint image on a printed sheet appearing in an area where it was not intended.

Mechanical ghosting develops a repeat image on the same side of the sheet due to a press condition, such as blanket problems and ink starvation.

Chemical ghosting develops as an image on the back side of a sheet, transferred from the front of the sheet below and occurs during the drying of the ink on paper.

Gigahertz

One billion cycles per second.

An Iris print, the name derives from the French for “spurt.”

Graphics Interchange Format

One of the two most popular file formats for graphics on the Internet, the other being JPEG. It is popular because it reduces the file size of the image. It supports black and white, color, and transparency. It is best suited for images containing large areas of the same color.

G

Represents one billion.

GB

Equals 1,073,741,824 bytes. 1 gigabyte of storage equals 1000 megabytes of storage.

GHz

One billion cycles per second.

In book printing, the application of gold leaf to the edges of a book.

A relief process made by transferring a lithographic image to a metal plate that is then etched to produce a relief plate. The term is also used inaccurately to indicate varieties of photomechanical relief printing.

All three outer edges of the pages of the book have been trimmed smooth and coated with gold leaf.

GE

The edges of the pages of a book after they have been cut smooth and colored, usually with gold paint.

See also all Edges Gilt.

Brief or magnifying glass.

A process in which a piece of glass is covered with a template that has a design cut out of it. The glass is then sandblasted while the portion of the item not covered by the template is protected. The template image is thus etched into the glass.

1. A thin dense paper that is transparent or semi-transparent.

It is grease resistant. It has a slightly cloudy appearance.

It is often used as a patch over a die cut window on envelopes.

1. A strong, thin, glazed, semi-transparent paper that used to make protective covers for

books because it is, among other durable characteristics, grease and water resistant.

Term applied to a finished embossed area having a shiny or polished appearance. Most often this process involves heat that is applied with pressure in order to create a shined and burned impression into the stock.

A term which is used to describe a malfunction that is unexplained.

A feature that searches for repeated occurrences of a specified series of characters (character string) within a file.

Generally the feature allows you to either automatically replace the string with another string or it will give you an opportunity to decide if you want to replace it once it is found.

GSM

The most popular standard for mobile phones in the world.

GSM service is used by over 2 billion people across more than 212 countries and territories.

The ubiquity of the GSM standard makes international roaming very common between mobile phone operators, enabling subscribers to use their phones in many parts of the world.

GSM differs significantly from its predecessors in that both signaling and speech channels are Digital call quality, which means that it is considered a second generation (2G) mobile phone system.

This fact has also meant that data communication was built into the system from the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP).

A coating on paper that provides a higher reflection of light which results in a shiny appearance. Gloss coatings reduce ink absorption, which allows excellent contrast and color definition.

An ink that contains extra varnish, which makes the ink appear glossy when printed.

Paper with a gloss finish, usually used for higher quality printing.

A list of definitions.

A glow is the opposite of a shadow in that it creates a surrounding highlight of an image. A high radiance creates a soft, subtle glow and a low radiance creates a hard, bright glow, such as a neon glow.

A label that does not have an adhesive layer. It is adhered to the product by glue being applied to the label or to the container during the application process. A cold glue or hot glue adhesive is used to apply the label.

A dot of glue applied to a form to help hold it together for future manufacturing processes. Commonly used for roll folded inserts or to hold a gate of a cover down. The glue tack is usually applied during the folding process.

Glued length-wise jointing of timber pieces used in load-bearing structures

A cover fastened to the text with glue.

The process of applying glue to the spine of a book to be casebound, after sewing and smashing, and before trimming.

Product which is laminated by gluing two or more timber pieces together

A symbol carved in stone; in typography a letter with more than one variant in an alphabet, such as “s” in German as well as Greek.

An image in a font file. For comparison a lowercase ‘a’ is a character. In the latest font file technologies (OpenType and AAT) there can be several glyphs that are a lowercase ‘a’ in a font file.

In digital font files glyphs are assigned numbers starting at zero. The numbers are used by tables and instructions to access the glyphs.

A carved as opposed to scripted typeface.

A form of electrotype process where a copy is obtained from an engraved plate by creating a raised surface suitable for letter-press printing.

Refers to the condition of a book; chewed-on edges or corners of a book.

Refers to any Unix-like computer operating system which uses the Linux kernel.

It is one of the most prominent examples of open source development and free software as well as user generated software; its underlying source code is available for anyone to use, modify, and redistribute freely.

Initially developed and used primarily by individual enthusiasts on personal computers, Linux has since gained the support of corporations such as IBM, Sun Microsystems, Hewlett-Packard, and Novell, Inc., and has risen to prominence as an operating system for servers; eight of the ten most reliable internet hosting companies now run Linux on their web servers.

Linux has been more widely ported to different computing platforms than any other operating system.

It is used in devices ranging from supercomputers to mobile phones, and is gaining popularity in the personal computer market.

A process for shaping the surface of paper into a pattern, usually with fine grooves.

The rule devised to give proportions of height to width when laying out text and illustrations to produce the most optically pleasing result.

A flat sheet of yellow or orange opaque masking material used to assemble and position negatives for exposing plates. The material is used to prevent light from exposing the non-image areas of a printing plate or film. Also called masking sheets.

A system used, before the World Wide Web, to organize and display files on an Internet server. It was developed at the University of Minnesota as a text-based Internet browsing service uses a simple user interface.

The content is presented as a hierarchially structured list. With the development and aceptance of the Web, the Gopher has been largely replace by Web sites.

A sans serif type that is very common and plain in appearance.

A statement that tells the computer to move to an instruction other than the next one, and continue execution of the program from there.

Refers to the condition of a book; an unintentional nick or hole in the cover of a book, or on its spine.

Or in bookbinding, a single-line finishing tool that is used to create either blind or gold decoration on the covers but not on the spine of a book.

A smooth transition between black and white, one color and another, or color and the lack of it.

A smooth transition of shades between black and white, between one color and another, or between one color and white. Also called a gradient.

The quality of paper as determined by the ingredients of the stock such as wood or cotton fiber and the method of manufacturing. All papers fit into a group or type of paper which is its grade.

A gradual changing of screen densities which creates a blending from light to dark, or dark to light.

Screen tint that changes densities gradually and smoothly, not in distinct steps. Also called degrade, gradient, ramped screen and vignette.

1. In a negative, print, or transparency, the visual appearance or texture created by the silver particles on the film. Frequently considered undesirable and apparent when an original is enlarged too much.

2. In paper, the direction in which the fibers line up during the manufacturing process. It is easier to fold, bend, or tear the paper along the same direction of the fibers. Cut sheet laser printers generally use long grain paper in which the grain runs parallel to the long side of the paper, resulting in better performance through the laser printer.

As the paper web is carried forward on the machine, the majority of fibers orient themselves in the machine direction.

When the web of paper is sheeted, the sheets will be grain long (fibers that follow the long side of the sheet) or grain short (they follow he short side).

Grain direction should be considered during the design process for best results during printing, folding, and converting.

When the fibers in paper run parallel to the long dimension of the paper. For 8 1/2” x 11”, long grain would mean the grain runs the 11” direction. Also referred to as long grain.

When the fibers in paper run perpendicular to the long dimension of the paper. For 8 1/2” x 11”, grain short would mean the grain runs the 8 1/2” direction. Also referred to as short grain.

A paper embossed to resemble various textures, such as leather, alligator, wood, etc.

The sand-like or granular appearance of a negative, print, or slide. Graininess becomes more pronounced with faster film and the degree of enlargement.

The way a halftone or photograph appears when it has been enlarged too much. The pattern of crystals in the emulsion can be seen in the enlargement and gives it a grainy look.

Unit of weight in the metric system; the weight of one cubic centimeter of water at standard conditions. 28.35 grams equal one ounce.

The basis weight of paper based on weight in grams per square meter of paper, abbreviated g/m2 or gsm.

A sum of money paid in the form of a gift to finance a particular project, such as a book.

The trades, industries and professions related to the designing and manufacturing of a printed product.

Film whose emulsion responds to light on an all-or-nothing principle to yield high contrast images.

Lens, mounted in a small stand, used to inspect copy, negatives, and printing.

The bottom-most layer on a web page, usually with either a design or color that highlights the above copy. A small graphic can be tiled to create a background texture for a web page.

The art of putting together text, illustrations and other visual elements to create a specific message. The specifications, for paper, ink and the type of printing process to be used, also are part of the design.

A person who puts together the text, illustrations and other visual elements to create a design appropriate for the product.

Fine paper with a pigmented surface layer which increases the uniformity of the printing surface and provides improved printing properties, particularly for the reproduction of illustrations.

GUI

A particular case of user interface for interacting with a computer which employs graphical images and widgets in addition to text to represent the information and actions available to the user.

A computer program code that enables the user to have quick and easy access to program features such as buttons, icons, graphics and pull-down menus without having to learn complex programming.

Usually the actions are performed through direct manipulation of the graphical elements.

A visual illustration created by drawing, photography, writing or engraving, used to make text copy more understandable or interesting.

General term used for a computer file containing a picture: photographic image, illustration etc.

GIF

One of the two most popular file formats for graphics on the Internet, the other being JPEG. It is popular because it reduces the file size of the image. It supports black and white, color, and transparency. It is best suited for images containing large areas of the same color.

The process of printing from an etched copper cylinder or wraparound plate that contain cells that hold the ink for transfer to the substrate. In gravure color printing, each succeeding color is printed on a dry color, rather than one still wet as in offset lithography.

An especially soft, absorbent grade of paper, such as handmade papers from Japan with silky fibers especially suited to capture the nuances of hand-pressed copperplate prints.

The neutral shades of gray that are produced in color printing when cyan, magenta and yellow are combined.

Flat substrate made of mostly uniform fiber layers over 225 g/m2 and colored gray.

GCR

A technique used in the color separation process that replaces the neutral gray portion in cyan, magenta, and yellow with black. Instead of the cyan, magenta and yellow to producing these grays, they are produced with the black.

The number of different gray tones a computer is capable of producing.

A strip of paper containing gray tones ranging from white to black. Used to analyze and obtain the optimal tonal range and contrast of an image. Scanner and process camera operators use to determine exposure times for film and plates.

Body text that is made illegible when viewed at 12 points or below, for the purpose of speeding screen redraw or creating a rough layout.

Areas of gray are used to simulate lines of text at a point when the actual text a concern. It helps to speed the process when developing a draft of a page.

A nonprofit organization devoted to environmental standard setting, product certification, advertising claims substantiation and public education.

A pattern of lines, printed on paper or displayed on a monitor, representing the layout of a printed product. The grid is used to help organize and position the copy for the printed piece.

The combination of recorder elements (RELs) into a visual (halftone) dot.

The physical size of the grid cell remains constant, and a computer program then defines the filling of the cell with picture elements or a pixel pattern in accordance with the color or gray value to be reproduced.

See Also Screen Cells.

The shape of the halftone screen dots. Some common shapes are linear, elliptical, and round. Different shapes cause different effects in the final output.

Adobe Photoshop allows you to specify a diamond dot, which is supported on some of the newer imagesetters.

Contact your vendor to find out whether your imagesetter supports the diamond dot function.

Programs in which participating companies reduce their electric energy consumption in periods of heavy demand, such as during a heat wave, in order to prevent widespread failure of the electric power system.

Electric consumers are given financial incentives in the form of cost savings to reduce their energy load.

The Venetian die-cutter known as the inventor of italic type. In February 1496, the letterpress printer Aldus Manutius published an essay by the Italian scholar Pietro Bembo. The italic type “Bembo”, which was developed by Griffo from an official papal font, quickly gained in popularity and would later play an influential role in font design.

Alternate term for binding edge when referring to perfect bound products.

The area that is removed along the spine of the gathered signatures before perfect binding. Approximately 1/8” is removed from the spine.

A row of clips that holds a sheet of paper as it speeds through the press.

The leading edge of a sheet which is grabbed by the grippers to be pulled through the press.

The protruding part of a folded signature, which can easily be gripped for production with inserts. The width of the gripper fold is in most cases approximately 8 millimeters, but must be accurately specified in accordance with postpress processes.

The unprintable area of the page where the printing press grippers come in contact with the paper.

Metal finger like clamps that grab the paper to pull it through the press as the sheet is being printed.

The weight of the container or packaging material plus its contents. Net weight plus the tare weight equals the gross weight.

Refers to fonts, the letters of which have a constant weight and are free of serifs. Examples of sans-serif fonts of this kind are Futura, Helvetica, Arial, Optima, Univers, Franklin Gothic and Frutiger.

Grotesque faces are generally regarded as functional and modern, and are generally used for aesthetic reasons. From the point of view of legibility, they are less suitable for running text than serif typefaces.

Chemical or petroleum product contamination of water that is dispersed in soil or rock strata.

Paper that is made up of 10% to 75% mechanical (groundwood) pulp. It is an economical hi-bulk paper but will not be as bright as a free sheet paper. It will also age faster than paper that does not contain groundwood pulp.

A wood pulp that contains the natural wood impurities and has not been chemically processed. Also known as mechanical pulp.

Computer software designed to assist in collaboration among users and to organize their activities such as scheduling, data conferencing, and document and task management.

Grams Per Square Metre

A method of indicating the substance of paper on the basis of weight in grams per square metre.

1. Global System for Mobile Communications

The most popular standard for mobile phones in the world.

GSM service is used by over 2 billion people across more than 212 countries and territories.

The ubiquity of the GSM standard makes international roaming very common between mobile phone operators, enabling subscribers to use their phones in many parts of the world.

GSM differs significantly from its predecessors in that both signaling and speech channels are Digital call quality, which means that it is considered a second generation (2G) mobile phone system.

This fact has also meant that data communication was built into the system from the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP).

Generic Top-Level Domain

Atop-level domain used (at least in theory) by a particular class of organization.

These are three or more letters long, and are named for the type of organization that they represent (for example, .com for commercial organizations).

The following gTLDs currently exist (as does .arpa, which is sometimes considered a gTLD):

.aero – for the air transport industry

.biz – for business use

.cat – for Catalan language/culture

.com – for commercial organizations, but unrestricted

.coop – for cooperatives

.edu – for post-secondary educational establishments

.gov – for governments and their agencies in the United States

.info – for informational sites, but unrestricted

.int – for international organizations established by treaty

.jobs – for employment-related sites

.mil – for the US military

.mobi – for sites catering to mobile devices

.museum – for museums

.name – for families and individuals

.net – originally for network infrastructures, now unrestricted

.org – originally for organizations not clearly falling within the other gTLDs, now unrestricted

.pro – for certain professions

.travel – for travel agents, airlines, hoteliers, tourism bureaus, etc.

A narrow strip of paper or linen pasted to a single leaf to allow sewing into a section for binding.

The bars that are at both ends and center of UPC and EAN symbols. They provide reference points for scanning.

An aggressive, highly targeted and sometimes subversive, street-level promotional campaign intended to create unexpected and memorable encounters between a product and its consumers.

Graphical User Interface

A particular case of user interface for interacting with a computer which employs graphical images and widgets in addition to text to represent the information and actions available to the user.

A computer program code that enables the user to have quick and easy access to program features such as buttons, icons, graphics and pull-down menus without having to learn complex programming.

Usually the actions are performed through direct manipulation of the graphical elements.

The edge of a printed sheet at right angles to the gripper edge, which travels along a guide on the press or folder. This edge, like the gripper edge, should never be altered or mutilated between the printing and folding operations. It is the shorter edge of the sheet.

A cross mark printed on the sheet, used to indicate where the sheet needs to be trimmed, to help register colors and to center copy. Also referred to as register marks.

Sometimes called a cocking roller. Located on the roll stand between the roll of paper and the dancer roll. Can be cocked to compensate for certain paper roll conditions.

The side the press uses to guide the sheet to the exact side toward the operator; also known as operator or control side.

Derived from the French guilloche (graver), term used for fine, interwoven geometric patterns of lines often printed on banknotes, certificates, etc., to make forgery more difficult. Guilloches are also often used as screen lines for illustrations, and works of art made of metal are not seldom decorated with guilloches engraved either by hand or machine.

A machine used to cut or trim sheet stock.

A chemical used to desensitize the non-printing areas of a printing plate.

When the envelope glue strip begins 1 1/2” to 2” from the left edge. The glue is not applied in this 1 1/2” to 2” area so that the envelopes can have a live stamp affixed to them before other components are inserted. The glue strip is kept out of this area because the moisture from applying the stamp can cause the flap to seal prematurely.

Streaks, particularly in halftones, produced by uneven gumming of plates which partially desensitizes the image.

The gum-bichromate process was popular among pictorialists like Steichen and Demachy for its painterly qualities.

Gum prints are produced by brushing onto a sheet of textured paper a gum arabic solution mixed with potassium bichromate and a suitable pigment. When dry, the sheet is exposed in contact with a negative.

The print is then developed during which the photographer can manipulate the print with a brush, sponge or spray of water. Multiple gum prints, usually more than one color, are made by additional printings of the same negative, in register, on the original sheet.

See Dry Gum

Paper or similar material that has a remoistenable or self-sticking adhesive applied to one side of the stock. If the adhesive is self-sticking, the stock includes a backing paper called a “release liner” which is applied over the adhesive when the paper is manufactured.

The release liner protects the adhesive from sticking to other surfaces during processing. Stock coated with a remoistenable adhesive must have moisture applied to activate the adhesive and does not require a liner over the adhesive.

In platemaking, the process of applying a thin coating of gum to the non-printing areas of a lithographic plate.

An expansion pleat folded and scored into a pocket to give it greater capacity when filled.

Born Johann Gensfleisch, son of Mainz patrician Friele Gensfleisch zur Laden, inventor of “printing with moving letters” or letterpress printing in either Mainz or Strasbourg.

His invention was based on cast type, a corresponding manual casting instrument, a suitable metal alloy and a printing press.

Gutenberg’s invention, which is today considered the trigger for one of the greatest revolutions in human history, spread throughout the world within a matter of years.

1. The white space formed by the inner margins of two facing pages (near the spine) in a bound book, journal, or newspaper.

2. The inside margins or blank space between two facing pages of a magazine or book is called the gutter.

The gutter space is allowed due to the space lost during the binding process, especially during perfect binding.

In saddled-stitched publications the gutter is adjusted o allow for a process called ‘creep’, in which the outer pages of a section appear to bunch up and the inner pages protrude more.

Gross Vehicle Weight.

The combined total weight of a vehicle and its container, inclusive of prime mover.