Glossary of Printing & Technical Terms

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

P

Page count:

Total number of pages, including blanks and printed pages without numbers. A page means a single side of a sheet. Therefore a piece of A4 paper printed both sides is two pages.

Pantone:

A proprietary control system providing a method for selection, reproduction and matching colours.

Paste-up:

Artwork pasted up as copy for photographic reproduction.

PCF:
Processed chlorine free paper is manufactured without adding any chlorine or chlorine derivatives. PCF is used on post consumer recycled paper, so if chlorine was used in the manufacture of the original product, it's still in the finished paper to a certain extent.

PDF:

A widely used file format, Portable Document Format, patented by Adobe, now widely used in the Printing Industry as the standard to both send files and image them.

PEFC:

Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification schemes. This organisation promotes sustainably managed forests through independent third party certification. Chain of custody certification provides a guarantee about the production of PEFC-certified products. Chain-of-custodý is the path taken by raw materials from the forest to the consumer, including all successive stages of processing, transformation, manufacturing and distribution. For more information please click here.

Perfecting:

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

Perfect binding:

A binding method used in books and journals in which pages are glued rather than sewn to the cover.

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).

Polywrap / polybag:

Thin polythene used as an alternative to envelopes in mailing of materials.

Posterisation:

Form of graduation, where it is desirable to have bands of colour created marking out the changes in shade.

PostScript:

Coding language for integrated text and graphic data.

Prepress:

All the functions in preparing jobs from the reception of artwork prior to being printed.

Process colour:

Colour specified in percentages of cyan, magenta, yellow and black.

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

Alternate names for the CMYK colours

Proof:

A copy of the document made prior to printing for customer inspection.