Bitmap - In computer imaging, the electronic representation of a page, indicating the position of every possible spot.

Bleed - An extra amount of printed image which extends beyond the trim edge of the sheet or page.

Contone (Continuous Tone) - A photographic image which contains gradient tones from black to white.

Copy - Any furnished material to be used in the production of printing.

Crop - To eliminate portions of the copy.

Digital Printing - Printing by plateless imaging systems that are imaged by digital data from prepress systems.

DPI (Dots per Inch) - A measure of the resolution of a screen image or printed page.

EPS (Encapsulated Post Script) - In digital prepress, a file format used to transfer graphic images within compatible applications. A file containing structured Post Script code.

Font - In composition, a complete assortment of letters, numbers, punctuation marks, etc. of a given size and design.

Format - The size, style, type page, margin, printing requirements, etc. of a printed piece.

GIF - A file compression format for graphics best suited to images made up of flat colours. GIF format supports transparency and is widely used on the World Wide Web.

Gutter - The blank space or inner margin from printing area to binding.

Halftone - The reproduction of continuous tone images, through a screening process, which converts the image into dots of various sizes and equal spacing between centres, or dots of equal size with variable spacing between them. For photos to reproduce well on a halftone device like a photocopier or printing press they need to be converted to a halftone.

Hard Copy - The permanent visual record of the output of a computer or printer.

Hardware - Physical Computer and peripheral components as distinguished from software which is a program for operating hardware.

Imposition - In digital imaging, the positioning of pages on a signature, so that after printing, folding and cutting, all pages will appear in the proper sequence.

Ink-jet printing - In digital printing, a plateless printing system that produces images directly on paper from digital data using streams of very fine drops of dyes which are controlled by digital signals to produce images on paper.

Insert - A printed piece prepared for insertion into a publication or another printed piece.

JPG or JPEG - A file compression format for graphics suited to photographic images and the most commonly used image file format on the World Wide Web.

Justify - In composition, to position page elements (usually text) uniformly across an area.

Lamination - A plastic film bonded usually by heat and pressure to a printed sheet for protection and appearance.

LAN - Local Area Network. A group of computers linked together, usually to share resources such as Printers or a File Server.

Laser (Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation) - The laser is an intense coherent light beam with very narrow bandwidth used digital imaging devices to produce images by electronic impulses from computers.

Layout - The drawing or sketch of a proposed printed piece.

Logo or Logotype - The name of a company or product in a special design used as a trademark in advertising.

OCR (Optical Character Recognition) - Computer software capable of parsing (reading) scanned images of documents and intelligently detecting and converting the various page elements into (editable) Fonts, vector graphics and tables.

PDF (Portable Document File) - A proprietary format for the transfer of designs across multiple computer platforms. PDF is a universal electronic file format, modelled after the Post Script language and is device and resolution independent. Documents in the PDF format can be viewed, navigated and printed (subject to Author defined constraints) from any computer regardless of the fonts or software programs used to create the original.

Pixel - Short for 'picture element', A pixel is the smallest resolvable point of a raster image. It is the basic unit of digital imaging.

PostScript - A page description language developed by Adobe Systems Inc. to describe an image for printing. It handles both text and graphics. A PostScript file is a purely text-based description of a page.

RIP (Raster Image Processor) - In digital imaging, a combination of computer software and hardware that controls the printing process by calculating the bit maps of images and instructing printing devices to create the images. Most PostScript systems use a hardware RIP built into the printer.

Ream - Five hundred sheets of paper.

Register - In printing, fitting of two or more printed images in exact alignment with each other.

Resolution - In electronic imaging, the quantification of printout quality using the number of spots per inch.

Serif - The short cross-lines at the ends of the main strokes of many letters in some type faces.

Server - A file server provides centralised data backup, security and data interchange between compatible peripheral devices such as computer workstations on a local area network. Servers are identified by the type of resource they provide (e.g. disk server, file server, printer server, communications server).

Spot Colour - Addition of single colours to documents.

Stock - Paper or other material to be printed.

Text - the body matter of a page or book, as distinguished from the headings.

TIF or TIFF (Tagged Image File Format) - A 'non-lossy' graphics file compression format suited to accurately storing scanned image bitmaps. TIFF is a neutral format designed for compatibility with most applications. TIFF was created specifically for storing grayscale images but has become the standard format for storing any images where image quality is more important than small file size.