Printing Partners Glossary of Terms
Printing Partners  Printing Partners Glossary of Terms
Printing experience
Every industry has a collection of words that are unique. The printing industry is no exception.
We have gathered a group of what we consider to be the most important terms in printing and finishing. Hopefully you will find this glossary useful.

The following definitions are offered to provide a common understanding for phrases such as “we’ll print your brochure 4/4 work/turn with satin aqueous coating.”

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Glossary

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Gallery Proof
A proof of text copy before being made into pages.

Gamma
A measure of contrast in photographic images.

Gapless
Plate or Blanket Cylinders without gaps.

GATF (Graphics Arts Technical Foundation)

gathering
Finishing operation that involves assembling signatures in order next to each other.

Gear Streaks
Parallel streaks sppearing across the printed sheet at the smae interval as gear teeth on the cylinder.

Generation
Easch succeeding stage in reproduction from the original copy.

Gigabyte (GB) One Billion Bytes

Gloss Finish
Extra-smooth finish applied to paper to achieve even light reflectance, ink hold-out and uniform ink coverage.

Goldrenrod Paper
A specially-coated masking paper of yellow or orange color used by strippers to assemble and position negatives for exposure on plates.

Grain
Alignment of fibers in paper; affects how paper feeds through presses and printers, and how it folds.

Grain Long
Condition in which the majority of paper fibers run parallel to the long dimension of the sheet.

Grain Short
Condition in which the majority of paper fibers run parallel to the short dimension of the sheet.

Grammage
A term in the metric system for expressing the basis weight in paper. It is the weight in grams of a square meter of the paper expressed in g/m(squared)

Gray Balance
The dot values or densities of cyan, magenta and yellow that produce a neutral gray.

Gray Level
The number of gray values that can be distinguished by a color seperation filter - usually 2E8 or 256.

Gray Scale
Digital, or printed continuous, or stepped ramp of gray values from highlight to shadow.

Gripper Edge
The leading edge of paper as it passes through a printing press. Also, the front edge of a lithographic or wrap-around plate secured to the front clamp of a plate cylinder.

Gripper Margin
Portion of the lead edge of a sheet that is held in grippers as the sheet is transported through the press; this area cannot be imaged.

Grippers
Mechanical fingers that pull a sheet through the print unit of a press.

Groundwood Pulp
A mechanically-prepared wood pulp used in the manufacture of newsprint and publication papers.

GUI
A technical term for a system that lets users manipulate files by pointing to pictures(Icons) with a mouse or other pointing devices instead of having to type in commands.

Gum Arabic
Used in platemaking and on press to protect the non-printing areas of plates.

Gumming
The process of applying a thin coating of gum to the non-printing areas of plates.

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