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You Don't Understand The "Lingo"

Alright, this wasn't one of the original seven mistakes. But it IS important. It's so important, I decided to define ten of the most common printing terms so YOU understand what printers are saying!

LINE COPY:

When a printer says line copy, he or she means the words that are on a sheet of paper you want to print. Printers typically print the words on a sheet of paper differently than they do the photos. Technology changes have permitted printers to print line copy with paper plates (see "paper plates" further in this list) and produce a very good looking print job. But this technology doesn't work as well on photos. Be cautious when attempting to incorporate photos in your type or line copy. Typically it will cost more and takes longer to print your job.

 

MECHANICAL:

Printers are referring to any art or drawings you are printing. Mechanicals usually cost a little more to reproduce because they usually incorporate line copy and drawings.

 

HALFTONE:

This is the final piece of art your printer needs to print your photograph. Halftones are sometimes referred to as a dot screen - the words are interchangeable. A printer needs to take the photo you have given them, put a piece of film that has a dot pattern over it and shoot a halftone. This takes your photo, which is a continuous tone, for photography buffs, and makes it into dots so the press can print it.

 

GRIPPER:

The "gripper" is the space at the top of the sheet that is needed for the press to grab the sheet of paper and pull it through the press. The gripper area cannot be printed on. So when your printer is laying out your sheet, they need to consider the non-print area at the top. This only becomes a problem if you are trying to cover the whole sheet with ink. The typical non-print area ranges from 1/4 to 3/8 of an inch.

 

PAPER PLATES:

Paper plates are one method printers use to print your job. There are many methods they can use. But the two most commonly used methods today are paper plates (what we are defining here) and metal plates (what we will define next). Paper plates is the newer technology that makes it cheaper and faster for a printer to print your work.

The advantage of using paper plates is that they are cheaper for the printer to use so you save money. And because they are easier to use, you get your jobs quicker than ever before. The paper plate is thrown away after every use. This allows you to make constant revisions to your printed piece. And it doesn't change the price. Of course, if you ask your printer to make the changes, they will charge you a typesetting fee. But the printing cost remains the same.

On the other hand, the disadvantage of paper plates is that the plates stretch over long use, which makes registering jobs difficult. The plate is thrown away after every use so every reprint job will come out a little different. Photos don't reproduce as well as the other method, which uses negatives and metal plates. You are going to get about the equivalent of newspaper quality on photos when you use paper plates.

 

METAL PLATES:

Metal plates are the other method printers typically use to print your job. This is an old method whereby the printer must shoot negatives first, then strip the job and plate it. Metal plates give you a superb quality print job.

The advantage of metal plates is that once you have paid for the negatives, stripping and plating, every subsequent print job costs less than a paper plate. This is a great method for long runs in which the copy doesn't change. Also, the plate is exactly the same on every run so your print job looks the exact same every time.

The disadvantage of using metal plates is that once the job is plated, if you want to change one word you have to pay to have it all redone. Typically it takes a printer longer to do this because it involves so many more steps. The other disadvantage is cost. Negatives, stripping and plating are only performed when a printer uses metal plates. These steps are not done when a printer uses paper plates. It is easy to see why it costs a little more for metal plates than it does for paper plates.

 

NEGATIVES:

Printers are referring to the film that is required to burn the metal plate for your print job. Negatives are the reverse of your printed piece. If you have line copy in your job, your printer will shoot one negative for that. If you have two photos in the job, the printer must shoot two halftones. One halftone for each photo. Remember halftones are just the dot pattern of a photo so the press can recognize the photo. Printers also refer to the line screen of a halftone.

 

STRIPPING:

This is the process of taking the negative and positioning it on a masking sheet so it can be used to burn the metal plate - which is called plating. The masking sheet is a ruled piece of paper that allows for the gripper and doesn't let any ultraviolet light through the paper. This process can take a considerable amount of time depending on how detailed your job is. First, a printer will strip in the line copy and then come back with a new masking sheet and strip in the halftones (photo).

Modern technology has replaced strippers with computers. If you compose a job and give the printer the disk, you have already done 90% of the stripping in your computer. If you did all of the work on your computer, placing text and images, then your printer refers to those negatives that are printed off your disk as composite negatives. They still need to be stripped for position top to bottom and left to right. But the stripper doesn't have to compose the line copy together with your photos.

Once the job has been stripped and everything is done, some printers refer to this as a flat. You might hear them say, "They stripped your flat." This means everything is ready to go. A flat is printer's lingo for a job that has been stripped on a masking sheet and is ready to burn a plate.

 

LINE SCREEN:

A line screen is the density of the dot screen a printer uses to create halftones from your photos. Remember, we said a paper plate produces newspaper quality. That means the dot screen is 85 or 100 line screen. The metal plate process typically uses 133 line screen for one and/or two color printing. Remember, line screen is only referring to more or less dots in your photograph.

 

COLOR SEPARATION:

Printers need to separate Color 1 from Color 2 because when they print your job, they can only print one color at a time. Let's say you need to print black and red on your letterhead. Your printer must shoot a plate for the black and another plate for the red. That's why your printer needs separations.

These 7 mistakes are some of the biggest people make when choosing their printer. Of course, there are others you can make -- we would like to help you avoid making any costly mistakes at all!

If you have any more questions about printing, please give us a call. We will be more than happy to help you.

Mistake #7