Book Printing Terms
Browse common book printing terms by part, process, material, design, color, and ordering.
The outermost part of a book. The front cover usually displays the book’s title, author, and often an image or design to...
The outer part at the back of a book. The back cover often has a summary, reviews, or a barcode, giving readers a quick...
The center part of a book that connects the front and back covers. It typically displays the title, author, and publishe...
The main body of a book, made up of the pages stacked together before the cover is added. The cover and endsheets aren’t...
An important part of a hardcover book. It’s the paper that connects the book block to the cover, located at the beginnin...
The pastedown is the half of the endsheet that’s glued to the inside of the book’s cover. It’s the part you see when you...
The flyleaf is the free half of the endsheet, which is a sheet (endsheet), folded in half to connect the cover and book...
The headband is a small strip of fabric or thread at the top of a hardcover book’s spine. It reinforces the binding and...
The tailband is a small strip at the bottom of a hardcover book’s spine, reinforcing the binding. It’s identical to the...
It’s a thin strip of fabric attached to the top of a book’s spine. This strip functions as a bookmark and adds a decorat...
It’s a removable paper cover wrapped around a hardcover book. It can vary in specs, like thickness or lamination, to sui...
The jacket flap is the folded part of a dust jacket that tucks inside the front or back cover, usually about 3-5 inches...
Sometimes called an obi or book band, is a strip of paper wrapped around a book’s middle. It highlights extras like awar...
A tip-in page is a sheet bound back into a book after it’s fully constructed. It serves as a fix, for pages that planned...
A tissue guard is a thin, semi-transparent sheet placed over an illustration page. In the past, text and illustration pa...
A page that extends beyond the book’s standard size when unfolded, perfect for maps, wide illustrations, or detailed cha...
A paperback cover with folded extensions that mimic dust jacket flaps. These flaps protect the cover corners for added d...
The gutter refers to the inner margin area where the pages join the spine. It’s the space on each page next to the bindi...
The book edge refers to the outer boundaries of the book’s pages as fore-edge, head, and tail. The fore-edge is the side...
The hinge is the bend line between the cover and spine on a hardcover book. Hardcover books are made with three pieces o...
Mull, also called Super in some British regions, refers to the lightweight fabric glued to the book spine of a hardcover...
Lining paper, also called liner is a strip or piece of paper used for reinforcement on the spine or boards of a hardcove...
It is used to reference the position of the book’s page edges. Fore-edge: Outer edge opposite the spine. Head edge: Top...
Offset lithography, also known as “offset printing”, is a popular printing technique used to produce a wide range of pri...
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Gravure printing is a high-speed, high-quality printing process that uses a metal cylinder engraved with images or text,...
Letterpress is one of the oldest printing techniques and the contents printed by it are touchable because of its means o...
Flexography is a relief printing technique that uses flexible rubber or photopolymer plates to press the inks onto the s...
Print on demand meaning the items will only be printed or produced after customer placing their orders, which it allows...
UV coating is a liquid coating that is applied on the printing materials and cured with UV light, it is use to add a shi...
Debossing is the opposite of embossing. Instead of raising the design, it presses the image or text into the surface to...
Foil stamping is a printing technique that using heat and pressure to press a thin layer of metalic or pigmented foil on...
Screen Printing is a printing method that pushes the ink through a mesh screen onto the surface below. It often used for...
Varnish coating is a clear liquid applied to printed materials for protection and decoration purposes. It consists with...
Laser cutting uses a high-powered laser beam to cut or sculpture precise shapes and patterns on materials like paper, wo...
Lamination means putting a thin plastic film on the printed materials to improve durability and appearance. It protects...
Metallic ink contains tiny reflective particles that provide a shining metallic finish to the printing designs. It’s use...
Embossing is a printing technique that uses a metal die to press certain parts of the paper, such as text, logos, or ima...
Spot UV is a glossy coating applied to specific areas of a printed piece, enhancing contrast and focus with shine, it us...
Raised UV adds a textured, elevated glossy finish to selected areas. It provides a tactile, 3D feel and visual depth, id...
Sprayed edges are also known as painted edges. They are a finish where a solid color is applied to the trimmed page edge...
Gilded edges are also known as gilt edges. They are a metallic finish applied to the trimmed page edges, usually in gold...
Ombre edges are a gradient edge finish where color shifts gradually from one tone to another across the page edges. The...
Edge sanding is a finishing step that lightly sands the trimmed page edges to smooth the surface and reduce fibers and f...
Stenciled edges are a patterned edge finish where parts of the edge are masked so color or artwork appears in specific s...
Perfect Binding is a book binding approach, which glues the pages and covers together at the book spine with strong and...
Saddle stitching is a simple bookbinding technique that staples the folded sheets together along the fold line (book spi...
Case binding, also known as hardcover binding, is a bookbinding method that glues or stitches the pages together and the...
Smyth sewing (also called section sewing) stitches page groups (signatures) together with thread to create a strong book...
Die Cutting is a process for the machine with a sharp blade to cut the paper or other printing materials into a specific...
Thermal binding is a process that uses heat-activated glue to bind pages to a cover that was pre-made, and then put it i...
Glue-only binding refers to methods that rely only on adhesive (no sewing) to hold pages together at the spine. The page...
Paper grain is the way how fibers line up naturally in a sheet of paper, it just like wood has a grain, so does paper. T...
Coated paper is a kind of paper with a smooth surface that makes colors and images look brighter and clearer. It’s cover...
Matte art paper is coated but has a dull, non-reflective finish, it has a smooth touch and is a great paper choice to pr...
Dowling paper is an uncoated paper that is often used for novels, notebooks, and office printing. It has a soft, slightl...
Offset paper is an uncoated paper commonly used for writing, textbooks, notebooks, and letterheads, which is great in ab...
Folding in book printing is the process of bending large printed sheets into smaller sections called signatures. These f...
Calendering is a finishing process, the paper will pass through a series of heated rollers to make the surface smoother...
Bleed means the extra margin of space around the design that extend past the trim line, it's usually about 1/8 inch (3mm...
Trim size means the final size of the printed piece after all cutting and finishing is done, such as if you're designing...
What does signature mean in book printing? In book printing, a signature is a group of pages printed together on a large...
A proof refers to a sample version of a printed project created before the final print run, which allows authors, design...
What does folio mean in the world of book printing? In book printing, a folio refers to the page number printed on each...
In book printing, the term landscape refers to the orientation of a page or book, where the width is longer than the hei...
In book printing, the portrait refers to the vertical orientation of a page or book, where the height is longer than the...
Justification means aligning text to ensure both the left and right sides of a paragraph are straight and even, which ma...
DPI refers to a measurement of how many tiny dots of ink a printer can place in one inch of paper, the higher DPI is, th...
A watermark is a light mark or pattern that’s built into paper when it’s made, which normally it's only clear in visual...
CMYK stands for Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Black (Key), which are four main ink colors that will be used in most printin...
Pantone is a standardized color matching system used in printing and design to ensure color consistency across materials...
LPI stands for Lines Per Inch, a printing term that describes the fineness of halftone screens used to reproduce images....
Halftone is a way of turning photos or shaded artwork into tiny dots so they can be printed with solid ink. Printing pre...
In offset printing, each ink color (cyan, magenta, yellow, black) is halftoned at a slightly different angle. This preve...
Moiré is a visual distortion that looks like wavy lines, ripples, or interference across an image. It happens when two r...
It is a flower-like texture that appears when CMYK halftone dots overlap at different angles. Each color is set at its o...
A print run is the total number of copies produced in one batch of printing.
What is an ISBN? An ISBN (International Standard Book Number) is a unique 13-digit ID for a specific book edition. Store...
A Folded Corner Trim Defect, also known as a dog-ear trim-in, happens when the corner of a page is accidentally folded...
