Easy reference Printer glossary to undersatnd technical Jargon 

Keep this printer glossary handy.

Printer Glossary -

• Align: To line up typeset or other graphic material as specified, using a base or vertical line as the reference point.

• Blanket cylinder: The cylinder which the inked litho plate transfers the image to the paper. The cylinder is covered with a rubber sheet which prevents wear to the litho plate coming into contact with the paper.

• Bleed: The region of the page that is beyond the marked area within which printing usually occurs.

• Buffer: Memory within the printer that stores data from the computer until it can be printed. Buffers vary in size, with the average for laser printers being around 8 MB. Greater the buffer, the better the handling of large print jobs.

• CMYK: Short for Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black. These are the colours used in the industry-standard 'four colour process printing'. By combining these colours, a printer is able to print all possible colours. Most full-colour media that you see are created by this method (magazines, brochures, retail packaging, etc).

• Coated: Printing papers which after making have had a surface coating with clay etc., to give a smoother, more even finish with greater opacity.

• Cropping: The elimination of parts of a photograph or other origin that are not required to be printed. Cropping allows the remaining parts of the image to be enlarged to fill the space.

• Colour Balance: This term refers to the correct combination of Cyan, Magenta and Yellow required to exactly reproduce the colours of the original scene or object.

• Colour separations: The division of a multicolored original or line copy into the basic (or primary) process colors of yellow, magenta, cyan and black. These should not be oconfused with the optical primaries; Red, Green and Blue.

• DPI: Short for Dots Per Inch, this is a measure of the vertical resolution of the printer. Higher dpi values (1200 and above) produce sharper printouts, while lower dpi values (300 and below) produce images that have noticeable dots in them.

• Duplexing: This refers to the ability of a printer to print on both sides of a paper. It is a very handy way of saving paper. However, this option is neither cheap, nor common. An alternative is to use manual duplexing. In this method, you print the odd, or even-numbered pages first, and once the job is completed, you manually flip the pages over and the printer prints on the other side.

• Epson emulation: The industry standard control codes for dot matrix printers were developed by Epson and virtually all software packages and most dot matrix printers either follow or improve on these codes.

• Halftone: An illustration reproduced by breaking down the original tone into a pattern of dots of varying size. Light areas have small dots and darker areas or shadows have larger dots.

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• Ink jet printer: Unlike daisy wheel and dot matrix printers, which rely on physical contact with the an inked ribbon and paper, ink jet printers simply spray ink in a series of dots to form characters. While early ink jets were prone to clogging, they were capable of delivering good print speeds and relatively high-quality text and graphics. Today's best ink jet printers have eliminated most of the clogging problems, rival laser printers for text quality, and can also produce color images with near-photographic quality-all for even less money than a low-end laser printer.

• Interface: This is the type of connection that the printer has with the computer. Older printers use the parallel interface, but this has become obsolete. The latest printers use either USB or FireWire connections as their interface.

• International paper sizes: The International Standards Organization (ISO) system of paper sizes is based on a series of three sizes A, B and C. Series A is used for general printing and stationery. Series B for posters and Series C for envelopes.

• LASER: An acronym for Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation, it is a process that produces a very intense light beam. In a laser printer, this beam is used to fuse the toner, or ink, onto the paper.

• Layout: A sketch of a page for printing showing the position of text and illustrations, and giving general instructions.

• Overprinting: Printing over an area already printed. Used to emphasize changes or alterations.

• Pantone: A registered trademark for an ink colour matching system.

• Printer Command Language: A language developed by HP for use with its own range of printers. Essentially a text orientated language, it has been expanded to give graphics capability.

• PostScript: This is a computer language, or protocol used for communication between the computer and the printer. The computer sends information about the pages to be printed by the printer in PostScript format.

• Print engine: The parts of a page printer which perform the print-imaging, fixing and paper transport. In fact, everything but the controller. Progressives: Colour proofs taken at each stage of printing showing each colour printed singly, and then superimposed on the preceding color.