F - Printing Terminology and Facts

FINISHING

All operations after printing ie. cutting, folding, stitching etc., to produce the finished item.

FLAT SPINES

A type of spine used on the die cut folders where no capacity is required.  Made up of a single crease, a flat spine has a ‘V’ shaped profile.

FOIL BLOCKING

A process whereby coloured foil – often metallic – is selectively applied to a printed sheet.  Can only be used to reproduce line images, which do not incorporate very fine detail.  

FOLIO

Folio’s are sequential numbers used for page identification , where the outside front cover of a job is always termed ‘folio 1’ and the following pages are numbered concurrently with no allowance for blank pages, indexes or anything else which may not have a specific page number.

FOOT

The bottom edge of a printed document at right angles to the spine and opposite the head.

FONT

A set of letters, numbers and symbols that share a unified design.  The design is called a typeface.

FOREDGE

The side of a printed document opposite to and parallel with the spine.

FOUR COLOUR PROCESS

Full colour printing using four constituent colours: Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black.