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.

Page count

Total number of pages, including blanks and printed pages without numbers.

Pagination

Pagination describes the arrangement and number of pages. For example, cover; 4pp + 24pp.

Pantone® colours

Premixed ink colours that are often specified for printing as a spot colour. Can be matched using CMYK but will not be exactly the same colour as its Pantone colour counterpart.

Perfect binding

A bookbinding method in which pages are glued rather than sewn to the cover. Used primarily for paperback books.

Perfecting

Process of printing both sides of one sheet during a single pass through the press.

Point

A measurement for the size of type, distance between lines and thickness of rules. One point equals one seventy-second of an inch (0.3515mm).

Portrait

Describes the orientation of a page for normal viewing where the longer side runs from top to bottom.

Process blue / process red / process yellow / process black:

Alternate names for the CMYK colours.

Process colour

Colour specified in percentages of cyan, magenta, yellow and black. Different combinations of the four process colours can be used to create millions of different colours.

Progressives

Colour proofs taken at each stage of printing showing each colour printed alone and then superimposed on the preceding colour.

Proof

A representation of the finished print produced for customer inspection for errors to be corrected prior to mass printing.