This glossary of printing terms was created by people working in today's printing industry and is brought to you by MirPrint.com . It has been revised and edited and we have rewritten some technical descriptions in every day language to help the non technical person. Any suggestions that you may have on how we can improve this glossary will be carefully considered. Please send your comments and any new definitions to us at MirPrint.com.

• Face

  The term Face can mean the edge of a bound publication opposite the spine, also called a foredge. It may also refer to Typeface, which usually pertains to the visual appearance or style of a set of one or more fonts.
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• Fake Duotone

  A Fake Duotone, also referred to as a dummy duotone or dougraph, is a halftone in one ink color printed over a screen tint of a second ink color.
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• Feeding Unit

  A Feeding Unit is a component of a printing press that moves paper into the register unit.
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• Felt Finish

  A Felt Finish is a paper finish characterized by a wool or felt-like texture, produced at the wet end of the papermaking machine by pressing woven wool or patterned synthetic felts into the forming paper web during wet pressing to impart the texture of the material to the paper. Felt ...   Read More

• Felt Side

  The Felt Side is the top side of a sheet or web of paper, or the side that has not formed in contact with the papermaking machine's forming wire, as opposed to the wire side. As water drains down through the wire mesh belt from the papermaking furnish, small fibers ...   Read More

• Fifth Color

  A Fifth Color is any color used in addition to the four-color process, and usually refers to the creation of custom colors or non-reproducible colors such as fluorescents or whites.
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• Fine Papers

  Fine Paper refers to a wide variety of high-quality paper used for writing or printing. The quality can be determined by a variety of factors, including weight, gloss, composition and color.
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• Finish

  Finish refers to the surface smoothness of paper, which differs greatly according to variations in one or more aspects of the papermaking process, including use of and the design attached to a dandy roll in the forming section, the degree of wet pressing in the press section, and the use ...   Read More

• Flat Color

  Flat Color is a form of color printing in which color dots are not printed on top of each other; each colored ink is printed as is, as opposed to process color in which dots of one color are overprinted on dots of one or more other colors to produce ...   Read More

• Flat Size

  Flat Size refers to the size of a product after printing and trimming, but before it has been folded.
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• Flexography

  Flexography is form of printing that uses flexible rubber relief plates and highly volatile, fast-drying inks to print on a variety of substrates, commonly used in package printing.
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• Flood

  Flood, or Flooding refers to coating the surface of a screen fabric with ink without forcing the ink through the screen or making an impression. ...   Read More

• Flush Cover

  A Flush Cover is any book cover that is trimmed to the same size as the body pages, as on a paperback book. ...   Read More

• Fogging Back

  Fogging Back can refer to a technique used in making type more legible by lowering the density of an image while allowing the image to show through. Fogging can also refer to a defect of gravure printing, characterized by accumulating ink on the non-printing areas of the gravure cylinder. ...   Read More

• Foil Emboss

  Foil Embossing is a finishing operation combining embossing (the stamping or pressing of images or patterns into a substrate) with foil stamping (the application of a layer of foil in a particular design or pattern to a substrate). ...   Read More

• Folder

  A Folder is a bindery machine that folds printed materials with perfect accuracy. ...   Read More

• Foldout

  A Foldout is a printed insert which is designed to be bound into a book or other publication, but printed separately. The width of a foldout is wider than the page of the publication in which it is to be bound. Consequently, one or more folds are needed to ensure ...   Read More

• Folio (page number)

  The term Folio refers to a page number, commonly placed outside the running head at the top of the page. Folios are also commonly set flush left on verso pages and flush right on recto pages. They can also be centered at the top of the page. A folio that ...   Read More

• Format

  Format is a generic term which has several meanings. In typography, any combination of point size, line spacing (leading), line length, typeface, placement, and style that contributes to producing a specific typographic appearance. This may relate to a character, word, line, paragraph, section, page, group of pages, or an entire publication. In ...   Read More

• Four-color Process Printing

  Four-Color Printing refers to the printing of process color by means of color separations corresponding to the four CMYK process colors: cyan, magenta, yellow, and black. Combinations or overprinted dots of these four colors are what create the wide range of colors discernible to the human eye that can be ...   Read More

• French Fold

  A French Fold is a type of fold in which a sheet printed on one side is folded first vertically, then horizontally, to produce a four-page folder. ...   Read More