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.

• Laid Finish

  Laid Finish refers to a type of bond paper or book paper finish imprinted with evenly-spaced parallel lines that are visible when the sheet is held up to the light. This "laid finish" is produced in the same manner as a watermark; the lines are woven from wire and attached ...   Read More

• Laminate

  A Laminate is a material constructed by uniting two or more layers of material together. The process of creating a laminate is lamination, which in common parlance refers to the placing of something between layers of plastic and sealing them with heat and/or pressure, usually with an adhesive. ...   Read More

• Landscape

  Landscape refers to a page format in which the correct reading or viewing orientation is horizontal; the width of the page is greater than its height. ...   Read More

• Lap Register

  The term Lap Register refers to multi-color printing and the process of trapping, or overlapping of a thin strip of a second (or later) color at the edges of a previously-printed color. ...   Read More

• Laser Bond

  Laser Bond is a type of paper made especially smooth and try to be able to run well through laser printers. ...   Read More

• Laser-imprintable Ink

  Laser-imprintable Ink is a special type of ink that can be used in a laser printer that will not fade or blister as the paper ages. ...   Read More

• Lay Edge

  A Lay Edge is the edge of a sheet of paper that is feeding into a printing press. ...   Read More

• Lay Flat Bind

  This is a term that refers to pages held together with a cold glue, which is more flexible than hot glue, and the pages are not attached to the inside cover spine area but to a free-floating cap. The cover is held on by the first and last pages being ...   Read More

• Layout

  Layout has several meanings including: In typography, a drawing, sketch, or other plan indicating how a printed piece will look, including the placement of text, illustration matter, and other page elements, and perhaps type specifications. In prepress and design, the manual or electronic paste-up of pages. In platemaking, a marked sheet used for ...   Read More

• Leading

  Leading refers to the space between lines of type, also called vertical spacing, or film advance. The term leading dates back to metal typesetting, when thin strips of lead were inserted by hand between lines (i.e., lines were leaded). In linecasting, the line was one unit of metal called a ...   Read More

• Legend

  A Legend is any explanatory text attached to (or placed near) an illustration or chart, as distinct from a strictly descriptive caption. ...   Read More

• Lightweight Paper

  Formerly called bible paper, lightweight papers include a variety of different types of low-thickness, high-opacity papers used in bibles, handbooks, dictionaries, encyclopedias, and other uses that require low bulk or low weight (for example, in material that will be mailed). The basic size of lightweight papers is 25 x 38 ...   Read More

• Line Copy

  Line Copy is illustration material that contains no halftone, continuous tone, or tinted images. ...   Read More

• Line Negative

  A Line Negative is a photographic negative which contains only text or line art, no halftones, continuous tones, or other matter containing shades of gray. ...   Read More

• Linen Finish

  A Linen Finish is a paper finish characterized by a surface texture intended to simulate linen cloth, used primarily on bond paper. Linen-finish paper was originally produced by pressing the paper against linen cloth, but the linen finish is now imparted to the paper by embossing. ...   Read More

• Loose Proof

  A Loose Proof is any early copy of to-be-reproduced material produced as a means of checking for typos or other similar errors, as well as positional errors, layout problems, and color aspects. ...   Read More

• Looseleaf

  Looseleaf is a binding method allowing the insertion and removal of pages in a publication. ...   Read More