Printing Terms Dictionary
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X-Y-Z
C: Hundred.
C1S: Describes paper stock that is coated on one side.
C2S: Describes paper stock that is coated on two sides.
Cache: Pronounced "cash." Small portion of high-speed memory used for temporary storage of frequently used data. Reduces the time it would take to access that data, since it no longer has to be retrieved from the disk.
CAD: Computer Aided (or Assisted) Design or Drafting. It means using computers to design products or architecture. Sometimes CAD output is sent directly to operate the machinery that makes the product; this is called Computer Aided Manufacturing. See CAM.
Calcium Carbonate: In alkaline paper making, the primary filter; limestone or chalk.
Calendaring: A buffering process completed during paper manufacturing that polishes the sheet surface making it less prone to printing production difficulties.
Caliper: Thickness - Measured in thousanths of an inch.
CAM: Computer Aided (or Assisted) Manufacturing. This is when machinery (often robotics) to build products gets its instructions from computer input. This input usually originates in a CAD device. The CAD output _ the design for a new widget _ is fed into the CAM device and translated into instructions to the machinery that makes the widget. When they are integrated this way, it is known ad CAD/CAM.
Camera Ready Artwork: Paste up artwork (mechanical) in which all type is set and sized correctly and pasted up in correct position. All corrections have been made, all color breaks have been made and is complete in every sense. Does not need to have traps and/or reverses built in, but should include keylines and F.P.O. prints for photographs.
Capstan Design: In imagesetters, a system for moving the film or paper past the laser. The alternative is the drum design, in which paper or film is wrapped around a rotating drum.
Capsule Damage: Release of chemicalss in a CB carbonless form, caused by excess pressure or friction.
Carbonless Paper: Chemically coated paper so that duplicate copies can be produced without the use of carbons.
Case Sensitive: Knows the difference between capital letters and lower case letters. A case-sensitive search for ""CASE" would not find "case".
Cassette: A magnetic tape storage device, which combines the tape, and supply and take-up reels into a removable unit. The 1/4'' audio cassette and the VHS and Beta videotape units are the most familiar forms of cassette. See cartridge.
Cast Coated: Coated paper characterized by a highly polished, mirror-like surface and exceptional smoothness.
Catalog: Another name for a listing of directories or files stored on a computer or disk.
Cathode Ray Tube: See CRT.
Cause and Effect Diagram: A graphic techique for summarizing the results of a brainstorming session, identifying the causes of a specified undesirable outcome.
CB (coated back): Top sheet in a carbonless form.
CCD: Charge-Coupled Devices. A type of digital camera technology in which the image is focused on an array of sensing pixels. The small size of the array itself - approximately microchip size - and the high resolution _ around 1,000 to 1,018 pixels - of these cameras have greatly enhanced "image acquisition" capabilities and opened up exciting new applications in manufacturing quality control and in medicine.
CD: Compact Disc. A standard medium for storage of digital data in machine-readable form, accessible with a laser-based reader. CDs are 4-3/4'' in diameter. CDs are faster and more accurate than magnetic tape for data storage. Faster, because even though data is generally written on a CD contiguously within each track, the tracks themselves are directly accessible. This means the tracks can be accessed and played back in any order. More accurate, because data is recorded directly into binary code; mag tape requires data to be translated into analog form. Also, extraneous noise (tape hiss) associated with mag tape is absent form CDs.
CD-ROM: Compact Disc Read Only Memory. A data storage system using CDs as the medium. CD-ROMs hold mor than 600 megabytes of data.
CEPS: Color Electronic Prepress System. A computer based system for the graphics art industry that electronically simulates the traditionally labor intensive or cumbersome tasks associated with page makeup and color image manipulation.
Centronics: Standard 36-pin parallel interface for connecting printers and other devices to a computer.
Certificate (Digital Certificate): digital documents (files) that are provided by a certificate authority to give assurances of a person's identity. They verify a given public key belongs to a given individual.
CF (coated front): Receiver sheet in a carbonless form.
CFB (coated front & back): Intermediate sheets in a carbonless form.
Chill Roll: In Heat-set Web Printing, the refrigerateed roll sets the ink and cools the web.
Chromatic Aberration: In photographic or lithographic process lens, the result of the unwanted dispersion of light so that colors of the white light spectrum are focused on slightly different distances on a single plane. Lenses which have been corrected for this problem are said to be achromatic.
CMYK: Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black. The four so-called process colors (technically, they are "subtractive" colors) that are used in four-color printed reproduction. In desktop publishing it's one of the color models; the others being HSB, PMS and RGB.
Coated Free Sheet: A paper containing less than 10% groundwood pulp.
Cold Color: In printing and separations, colors which are on the bluish or greenish side. By using a print viewing filter kit an additive or subtractive solution may be found if a color correction is required.
Color Keying: A trick motion picture and TV directors use to superimpose one image over another for special effects. An image (say a person behind the wheel of a fake car) is filmed against a solid color background (usually blue). That film is sandwiched on top of another film sequence (say, the view from the rear of a moving vehicle going down the street). The result: the person appears to be driving a car down the street.
Color Model: How you describe a color. Imagine trying to explain "red" to a blind person. You can't, without a prearranged "language." Color models are those languages. See CMYK, HSB, PMS and RGB.
Commercial Registration: Color printing on which misregistration is allowable within +/- one row of dots.
Communication Protocol: The preliminary signals and settings that must be shared by two computers before data can be exchanged between them, usually via a modem. A typical communications protocol will establish the speed of the data flow in bps, error-correction methods that will be used, and data compression methods.
Composed Files: A PostScript file that represents color pages containing picture elements specified in terms of red, green, and blue (RGB) or cyan, magenta, yellow, and black (CYMK) color space, as opposed to black and white "gray level" pages which represent seperations.
Composite: The balck and white proof of a publication or, for a color publication, one sheet per publication page (rather than seperate sheets for each overlay) printed on a color printer.
Composite Video: The standard TV signal in which all the colors and the signaling (vertical and horizontal controls) are sent together. Unlike RGB, in which the red, green and blue signals are separate.
Compression: A software or hardware process that "shrinks" images so they occupy less storage space, and can be transmitted faster and easier. Generally accomplished by removing the bits that define blank spaces and other redundant data, and replacing them with a smaller algorithm that represents the removed bits.
Computer Readable: Data which is in a format, such as ASCII, or on a medium, such as disks, tapes, optical discs or punched cards, that a computer can understand. Same as machine readable.
Configuration: The specific assemblage of components and devices that make up the hardware components of a complete system.
Contact Print: A photographic same size copy made by exposure of a sensitized emulsion in contact with the transparency, negative or positive with the exposing light passing through the master image.
Contact Screen: a photographically-made halftone screen having a dot structure of a graded density, used in a vacuum contact situation with a high contrast (litho) frame.
Contiguous: Placed adjacently; one after another.
Continuous Tone: A photographic image which has not been screened and contains gradient tones from highlight to shadow. The original can be either black and white or color and contain no dots.
Contrast: The tonal gradation between highlights, middletones, and shadows in an original or a reproduction. The visual relationship of the original to the reproduction when comparing white to black ranges.
Control Chart: A graphic technique for identifying whether an operation or process is in or out of control and tracking the performance of that operation or process against calculated control and warning limits.
Control Strips: Series of color bars and percent tints placed just outside final image area; used to help maintain consistency during print runs.
Convergence: In an RGB monitor, where red, green and blue signals all "converge" in one pixel. At full brightness, the RGB pixel in convergence would be white.
Copy: Any furnished material that is to be used in the production of printing.
Core: Circular tube made of metal or fiberboard on which roll paper is wound.
CPI: Characters Per Inch. The density of characters per inch on tape or paper. See pitch.
CRC: Cyclical Redundancy Checking. An error-checking technique in data communications. A CRC character is generated at the transmission end. Its value depends on the hexadecimal value of the number of ones in the data block. The receiving end makes a similar calculation and compares its results with the sending machine's result. If there is a difference, the recipient requests retransmission.
CREF: Computer Ready Electronic Files. Designed by a number of printers and separators to draft a flexible set of standards or guidelines for preparing desktop publishing files for successful output to film. See also - Mechanical.
Crop: In order to eliminate portions of the copy, photograph or artwork, cropmarks are placed on the original or overlay to indicate which portions are to be eliminated. Careful cropping can save money in the final separation stage because color separations are billed for their final reproduction size on film, not just the portion being used at the printing stage.
CRT: Cathode Ray Tube. The glass, vacuum display device found in television sets and computer terminals.
Cursor: The symbol on a screen that shows where the next activity will take place. Graphics programs often change the shape of the cursor, depending on what action the computer is programmed to take next.
Cutoff: Measured distance around the blanket cylinder of a web press that establishes the length of repeatability of the image; also a term used to desribe the printed product as a sheet or signature in web production.
Cycolor: A printing process that allows full color, full tonal reproductions of continuous tone images. Uses a special film that is embedded with microcapsules containing dyes.
Cyan: One of the colored inks used in four-color printing. One of the subtractive process colors; reflects blue and green and absorbs red.