Glossary

The vocabulary print shops assume you know, in plain words.

Bleed

Artwork extending past the trim so that cutting tolerance never leaves a white sliver at the paper edge. Standard is 3 mm (0.125 in). See Setup.

Crop marks (trim marks)

Short hairlines outside the artwork showing where to cut. Drawn in registration color so they appear on every plate. See crop marks.

CMYK

Cyan, magenta, yellow, and key (black): the four process inks presses mix. Smaller gamut than screen RGB, which is why vivid colors dull. See CMYK and soft proof.

Dieline

A named spot-color line that a cutting machine follows. Common plate names: CutContour, KissCut, Dieline. See stickers and labels.

DPI and PPI

Dots per inch (printer hardware) and pixels per inch (image data). Interchangeable in casual use. What matters for quality is effective PPI: image pixels divided by printed size. See DPI checker.

GCR (gray component replacement)

Converting the gray component of colors into black ink instead of mixing CMY. The plugin uses maximum GCR: grays and black become pure K, which keeps text crisp and ink usage low.

Gamut

The range of colors a device can reproduce. Out-of-gamut screen colors must shift to print; the soft proof shows where.

Imposition

Arranging pages onto printing sheets, for example booklet order for saddle stitching. See booklets.

Overprint

Printing ink on top of other ink instead of knocking it out. Used for dielines and sometimes black text.

Print-focused PDF standards. X-1a: flattened, CMYK plus spot only, output condition declared. X-4 additionally allows live transparency and requires an embedded ICC profile. The plugin exports X-1a. See conformance.

Registration color

100% of all four inks (C100 M100 Y100 K100), used for marks so every separation plate shows them.

Rich black

A black mixed from several inks (commonly C40 M30 Y30 K100) that prints deeper than K alone on large areas. Small text should stay K100.

Safe area (safety zone)

The inner margin where text and logos are safe from cutting tolerance. The green dashed guide.

Saddle stitch

Binding by folding sheets and stapling through the spine. Requires page counts divisible by four.

Slug

The area outside the bleed holding marks and job information. The plugin sizes it automatically when marks are on.

Soft proof

An on-screen simulation of printed output. An approximation, useful for catching big shifts before paying for print.

Spot color

A named ink printed as its own plate (Pantone inks, varnish, cut lines) rather than mixed from CMYK.

TAC (total area coverage)

The sum of all ink percentages in one spot. Coated-stock limit is around 300%; more and the paper oversaturates. The plugin's conversion stays at or below 300% by construction.

Trim / trim box

The final cut size, and the PDF metadata rectangle that declares it. The blue guide line.