| Term |
Definition |
| Paper plate |
Printing plate made of durable paper. Cost effective with short print runs. |
| PDF |
Portable Document Format. A file type created from artowrk for use in proofing through to producing film and plates ready for printing. |
| Perfect bind |
To bind sheets that have been ground at the spine and are held to the cover by glue. This is the normal binding method for books. |
| Perforating |
Creating a line of small dotted holes or slits for the purpose of tearing-off a part of a sheet. |
| Pixel |
Short for picture element. A dot generated by a computer, scanner or other digital device. |
| Plate |
Sheet of paper, metal or plastic carrying the image to be printed onto the sheet. |
| Plate maker |
In lithography, a machine with a vacuum frame used to expose the image onto plates through negative or positive film. |
| Pantone matching system |
A range of standardised colour's in the design and print industry. Also called Pantone colours. |
| Point |
Regarding type, a unit of measure equaling 1/12 pica. |
| Portrait |
Art design layout where the height is greater than the width. The opposite of Landscape. |
| Positive film |
Photographic film which prevents light from passing through images, as compared to negative film that does allow light to pass through. |
| Process colours |
Colors used for four-color process printing. CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow and black). |
| Proof |
One off test sheet given to the customer to check for errors or flaws, and record how a printing job will look when finished. |
