Printing is one of those industries with a lot of terms to know!  Bleeds, trim size, full ink coverage, 4-color, 4/0, 4/4, lamination…. It goes on and on. Not to mention those elusive paper terms like text paper, cover paper, PPI, basis weight, etc…

To help out our first time authors, we put together a quick reference guide of commonly used terms in the book printing industry:

Binding : Any finishing operation following the printing including cutting, collating, folding, drilling and other finishing operations.

Bleed : Any element that extends past the edge of the printed piece.

Book Block : Folded signatures gathered, sewn and trimmed, but not yet covered.

Casewrap or case binding: A type of binding used in making hard cover books with adhesive.

Crop marks: Small printed lines around the edges of a printed piece indicating where it is to be cut out of the sheet.

4 color process : A system where a color image is separated into different color values (cyan, magenta, yellow and black or CMYK) by the use of filters and screens.
      4/0: Four process colors on one side of the sheet only.
      4/4: Four process colors on both sides of the sheet.

End Sheet: Sheets that attach to the inside pages of a case bound book to its cover. Also called end papers.

Lamination: Applying thin transparent plastic sheets to both sides of a sheet of paper, providing scuff resistance, waterproofing and extended use. Matte and gloss are available.

Perfect binding: A binding process where the signatures of a book are held together by a flexible adhesive.

Show -through: Printing on one side of the sheet that can be seen on the other side. (generally want to avoid)

Trim Size: The final size of the printed piece after it has been cut and trimmed.

We’ll cover Paper Terms in our next segment, Part II.