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C

Calliper
The thickness of a single sheet of paper. Expressed in microns. 1,000 microns = 1 millimeter.

Camera Ready
Final film for line art and text is usually produced with a camera shot rather than a scan. This photographic process is quicker, less expensive, and provides a higher quality output than a scan. Artwork that has all type, line-art and graphics in place and is ready to be photographed is said to be camera ready.

Cap Line
An imaginary line across the top of capital letters. The distance from the cap line to the baseline is the cap size.

Carbonless
Paper coated with chemicals and dye which will produce copies without carbon paper.
(See also NCR - No Carbon Required)

Card Stock
A stiff or rigid paper stock. Card (also referred to as Cover) stock is often used for post cards, catalog covers and other items which require rigidity. Card stock is usually described in point size, which is measured in thousandths of an inch. This is not to be confused with the unit of measurement for length "point". Card stock can also be described by pound weights. Note: Outside of the U.S., card stock is referred to as board and is measured in GSM, not point size or pound weight.

Case Bound
Case binding or bookbinding is the process of collating sections of folded pages and sewing them into a hardback cover.

Cast Coating
An extremely glossy, mirror like finish on a coated paper achieved by drying the paper under a polished cylinder during manufacture

Century Schoolbook
A popular serif font used in magazines and books for text setting which has a large x-height and an open appearance.

CMYK
Acronym for Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and blacK. The CMYK model is based on the light-absorbing quality of ink printed on paper. As white light strikes translucent inks, a portion of the spectrum is absorbed. Color that is not absorbed is reflected back to the eye. In theory, the subtractive primary colors cyan (C), magenta (M), and yellow (Y) pigments should combine to absorb all color and produce black. In reality deficiencies in inks and papers mean that 100% coverage of the subtractive primaries actually results in dark brown. This means we need to add black ink (K) to the process. K is used as the reference for black as B is sometimes used to refer to blue. The combination of these four inks to reproduce color is known as four-color process printing.

See also Four-Color Process and Primary Colors.

Coated Paper
Paper with a surface coated with clay and calcium carbonate to provide a smoother surface, more even finish with greater opacity.

Coating
Like machine varnishing, coating is applied on the press to help a job dry quickly and protect the sheets from marking. Coating is cheaper than varnishing and is less noticeable on the finished job. Coating is available in matte, gloss or neutral.

Collate
Bring the sections of a job together into the desired sequence.

Color
There are different modes of color used for describing and reproducing colors within different applications. Common modes include HSB (for hue, saturation and brightness), RGB (for Red, Green and Blue), and CMYK (for Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and blacK). When creating artwork you must ensure that your colors are set up appropriately for the print process.

Color Gamut
The gamut of a color system is the range of colors that can be displayed or printed. The spectrum of colors that can be viewed by the human eye is wider than any method of reproducing color.

Concertina Fold
Two or more parallel folds in a sheet which make the sheet open in a concertina fashion.

Condensed Type
A style of typeface in which the horizontal density of characters is increased, allowing more characters per line in a given point size.

Continuous Tone
An image in which the subject has continuous shades of color or gray without being broken up by dots. Continuous tones cannot be reproduced in that form for printing but must be screened to translate the image into dots.

Contrast
The degree of tones in a photograph ranging from highlight to shadow.

Cover Stock
(See Card Stock)

Creasing
Otherwise referred to as scoring. A crease is made in a sheet by a creasing cylinder before folding to prevent cracking along the fold. Creasing is used on heavy sheets (200gsm or over) or jobs with solid areas of ink across folds.

Cromalin or Matchprint
These proofing methods are quicker and cheaper than wet proofs but are not as color accurate. Cromalins and Matchprints do not use plates but they do use the final film. The image is created by applying color toner to a tacky surface and the proof is then protected by a sheet of laminate. The result is a very glossy proof, which heightens the red and yellow. Cromalins and Matchprints are approximately 90% color accurate. When producing a job on matte paper these proofs do not give a true representation of the final project because of their glossy finish.

Crop
Remove unwanted edges of an image.

Crop Marks
Crop marks show where a page, photo or transparency is to be cut. Crop marks determine which sections of a photo or transparency should be reproduced when only part of the original image is desired. Used in both the color separation and print finishing stages. Sometimes referred to as trim marks.

Crusive
Used to describe typefaces that resemble written script.

Cut Outs
When a specific area of an image is required to be cut out from the surrounding area this is referred to as a cut out. Cutting out is done in a program such as Adobe PhotoShop.

Cutting Die
Sharp edged device usually made of steel rule, to cut paper, cardboard, etc., on a printing press.
(See Die Cutting.)