Jargon Buster

Print terminology can be confusing and intimidating when you don’t understand it. If you can’t find the term you’re looking for, please call us on 023 9233 4900 and we’ll be pleased to help.

Magenta

A violet-red or purplish-red colour, magenta is one of the four process colours. The others are cyan, yellow and (key) black.

Make-ready

The work associated with the set-up of printing equipment before running a job.

Matt

A non glossy finish.

Metal plate

A metal sheet with a specially coated 'emulsion' on its surface which, when exposed through a film mask or by CTP process, will produce an image. When the plate is loaded onto a printing press it then reproduces this image using inks onto the paper.

Micrometer

Instrument used for measuring the thickness of paper.

Moiré pattern

An undesirable grid-like pattern caused by the misalignment of dots on a printed document. this can occur when printing or sometimes when scanning from pre-printed material.