Speak the Language
Printing has its own vocabulary. Here is a cheat sheet to help you communicate with our support team.
- 4/0 vs 4/4: "Four over Zero" means full color on the front, blank on the back. "Four over Four" means full color on both sides.
- Bleed: The 1/8" area outside the trim that is cut off.
- C1S / C2S: Coated One Side (standard cover) vs Coated Two Sides (postcards).
- CMYK: Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Key (Black). The subtractive color model for print.
- Creep: The phenomenon in saddle-stitch books where inner pages stick out further than outer pages due to paper thickness.
- DPI: Dots Per Inch. The measure of resolution. 300 is the standard.
- GSM: Grams per Square Meter. A universal measure of paper weight. 80lb Text is approx 118gsm.
- Gutter: The inside margin where pages are bound. You need extra white space here so text doesn't fall into the crack.
- Imposition: The process of arranging pages on a large parent sheet so they appear in the correct order after folding and cutting.
- Perfect Bound: A binding method using glue and a square spine.
- PP (Pages): We count "Pages" like a book reader. A single sheet of paper has 2 pages (Front is Pg 1, Back is Pg 2). A 100-page book uses 50 sheets of paper.
- Trim: The final cut size of the document.