More Commonly Used Commercial Printing Terms

By Author: Kaye Z. Marks
Total Articles: 252
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If you want your commercial printing knowledge to go from the layman stage to not-quite-an-expert-yet stage, you have to bulk up on printing vocabulary. There are perhaps thousands of different words commonly used regarding this subject.

While you cannot be expected to learn them all, it is better that you have a decent enough background on it. This way, you will not get lost within the conversation if in case your Dallas printers or DFW printers started to get technical with its explanations to you. To continue, here are a few more words and their meanings regarding commercial printing.

1. Caliper - The meaning of this word varies with the context it is being used for, but this generally has something to do with the thickness of paper or any other printing medium. As a unit of measure, such is usually expressed in thousandths of an inch, mils, pages per inch, and several other units. It may also be used to refer to a device, which can monitor the printing process and detecting double sheets of papers through their thickness. Whatever the case, whenever you hear this word, it is almost certain that they are discussing ...
... something, which has to do with paper thickness.

2. Etching - This printing technique makes use of acids and other strong chemicals in order to imprint or etch images and texts onto printing media such as metal and glass. There are actually a lot more uses for etching aside from commercial printing, such as photo etching on photosensitive printed circuit boards for electronics. In commercial printing, however, it is a technique which is not as often used as offset printing and which is related in a way to another printing technique called engraving.

3. Format - Regarding the materials you are going to have printed, this term is used to refer to practically every detail that a commercial printing customer will choose including, but not limited to size, fonts, layouts, colors, and others. However, this may also refer to the file format, which is used by the commercial printer, something which customers must take note of in order to avoid setbacks in the printing process.

4. Hickey - No, this does not refer to residual kiss marks on a commercially printed material, but in a way, it is similar. A hickey can be most accurately described as a smudge or spots of dirt caused by dirty equipment. Other terms to refer to this are bulls eye and fish eye.

5. Soy-based inks - This one is for those who wish to contribute to the going green effort of the world. This type of ink makes use of more environmentally friendly materials such as vegetable oils as opposed to petroleum-based materials, which means that these inks tend to be preferred by environmentally aware companies.

These are five more words to add to your vocabulary, that you may put to the test the next time you talk to a Dallas printer or some DFW printers. That is five steps closer to being a printing expert and five words closer to becoming a well-informed customer.

Kaye Z. Marks is an avid writer and follower of the developments by Dallas printers or DFW printers that help businesses in their marketing and advertising campaigns.