Terms of the Month: Nicole Turner
Production Associate / Assistant Designer, Charlesbridge Publishing
The CBC Early Career Committee shares Terms of the Month in our bimonthly newsletter, focusing on hand-selected vocabulary by the ECC to broaden our understanding of the publishing industry. This month’s focus is on the production department.
General Production Terms
- Reprint: When a book goes out of stock, additional quantities need to be ordered and printed to restock inventory. These are considered reprints of the original publication. Typically, there are no content changes, but this is the opportunity to update any copyright page information (like the print number) or make any necessary corrections.
- PPB: Short for “paper, printing, and binding,” this is used to reference the specific materials, manufacturing processes, and associated costs that are chosen to create the physical book product.
Printing Terms
- Offset Printing: A printing technique where ink is transferred from a metal plate to a rubber blanket and then to the paper. It’s called offset because the ink is not applied directly to the paper. This technique is most commonly used for books, magazines, and other materials with large print runs since the fixed costs of the process are more economical at higher quantities.
- Digital Printing: This term encompasses modern printing methods—like laser and inkjet—where liquid or pigment ink/toner is applied directly to the paper and dries faster than oil inks used in offset. Digital techniques are best for small print runs, projects with variable data, or rush projects.
Proofing Terms
- Digital proof: Also known as an electronic proof or a soft proof, these are electronic PDF files from the printer that show how the finished book will print. These are provided prior to physical proofs to confirm the content appears as intended and can also be used to show any text changes made after physical proofs.
- Wet proofs: Also known as a press proof or a hard proof, these proofs run on the actual offset press machine with the exact materials that will be used on the final bulk printing. They arrive on full sheets, arranged by pre-folded signatures. Accurate proofing material allows the editor, designer, author, and illustrator to review layouts at full scale and see how the ink and paper interact.
- Plotter: A plotter is a to-scale, low-resolution inkjet printout of the entire book. These are a cost-effective way to check the general layout, content, and pagination, but are not color-accurate.
- F&G: Stands for “folded and gathered.” These are run on the actual press with the real paper and ink that the final run will use. Unlike wet proofs, these are cut down, folded into signatures, and arranged in pagination order, although they are unbound. While these can also be used as marketing materials, production departments often review these after the bulk is printed to ensure that the final color matches the approved proofs before the full run is bound.
Base Product Specifications
- Trim size: Refers to the width and height dimensions of the book. The interior pages will be set to this exact dimension; however, jacket and case files will have larger measurements to accommodate for board size.
- Page count: The total number of pages with content in a book. This number will always be divisible by 8 or 16, depending on if the signature is folded once or twice.
- Binding: The way in which a book’s pages are assembled to form a text block—either by sewing or gluing.
- Square vs round spine: A square spine allows the book to lay flat and is more commonly used with perfect-bound (glued) books, picture books, or books with lower page counts. A round spine is curved and flexible, more commonly used with sewn bindings, case-bound books, and books with higher page counts.
- Process color printing: Also known as CMYK printing or 4-color printing. This process combines different percentages of cyan, magenta, yellow, and black in layered dots to create full color images. This is the most common color printing mode used for picture books, photographs, and other full-color print reproductions.
- Spot color printing: Utilizes premixed inks, such as Pantone colors, to achieve accurate color matching. This is best used for simple graphic designs. A spot color can be paired with process printing for 5-color projects, or can be paired with another single color for 2-color projects.
- Paper weight: A measurement of a stock’s thickness and weight, either represented in GSM or pounds.
- GSM: Means grams per square meter and is the international unit for measuring the weight of one square meter of paper.
- Pounds (lbs): Is a measurement more commonly used in the U.S. and Canada, representing the weight of 500 sheets of a specific size and stock. Because of this, the same pound number can refer to different types of paper (text versus cover). Generally, 1 pound of text stock is equivalent to 1.48gsm.
- Plus-ends: Endpapers that are glued into the front and back of the book as an addition to the main text and are not included in the page count. These are typically a different paper than the main text and are usually either a solid color or different opacities of a single spot color.
- Self-ends: These print with the same paper and ink as the main text and are included in the total page count. The first and last pages of the file won’t have any content since these will be glued down to the case as part of the binding process.
- Headbands: Decorative pieces of cloth material that are glued to the top and bottom of the book’s binding. They help reinforce the binding and add a polished and decorative finishing touch.
Extra Specifications
- Deckled edge: Also known as a rough front, this is when there’s a feathered and uneven edge on a book block, instead of an evenly trimmed cut edge.
- Blind embossing/debossing: A technique where a metal die is used to deeply press a design into paper without the use of ink or foil, leaving only a raised or recessed design.
- Foil stamp: A technique that uses metal dies, heat, and pressure to apply metallic or pigmented foil.
- Spot UV: A clear varnish with a gloss, matte, or textured finish that is applied to specific areas of a printed design and cured with a UV light. It provides visual and textured elements to the final product for added interest.
- Lamination vs varnish: Lamination is the application of a thin plastic film to paper that protects it from smudges, scratches, moisture, and tears. Varnish is a liquid coating applied to paper that protects against smudging and scratching. Both techniques are available in matte, gloss, and textured finishes, all of which reinforce the product and enhance the appearance.
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