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F

Face
An abbreviation for typeface referring to a set of characters in a given style.

Fan Out
The progressive widening of the web or sheet as it goes from unit to unit. Normally caused by tension differences between the roll and printing units or water absorption of the stock.

Felt Side
The smoother side of uncoated paper for printing. The top side of the sheet in paper manufacturing.

Filler
Extra material used to complete a column or page, usually of little importance.

Finish
The appearance of the surface of coated paper. The term "finish" refers to the surface of the paper, starting out with two basic choices - uncoated or coated.

Uncoated sheets have finishes ranging from super smooth, vellum and lustre to specially embossed finishes like linen and laid. There is a definite trend toward printing on uncoated sheets. Today, large corporations like to portray a softer, more understated image, which can be achieved with these papers. When partnered with fluorescent inks and the right prepress technology, the natural surface of uncoated papers is an ideal background for four-color process printing.

Coated paper has an outer coating applied to one or both sides of the sheet. These papers are available in a variety of finishes including gloss, dull and matte. They tend to have good ink holdout and minimal dot gain, which can be especially important for recreating sharp, bright printed images, black-and-white halftones and four-color process images. The smooth surface of coated papers also helps reflect light evenly. If color, crisp image or photographic reproduction is your concern, a coated gloss, matter or silk sheet is always a good choice.

Fit
When producing a multi-colored project, each color must be aligned in its exact position in relation to all the other colors. A printed sheet with all colors in correct register is said to be "in fit." Registration marks outside the trim area of the job are used to ensure that the sheet is in fit.

Flat
In lithography the assembled photographic negatives or positives on acetate ready for contact exposure in vacuum frame with the sensitized metal press plate.

Flexography
A modern rotary letterpress process printing from rubber or flexible plates and using fast drying inks. Mainly used for packaging.

Floating Accent
An accent mark which is set separately from the main character and is then placed either over or under it.

Flush Left
Copy aligned along the left margin.

Flush Right
Copy aligned along the right margin.

Flyer
An inexpensively produced single sheet folded or unfolded circular used for promotional distribution.

Fogging Back
Lowering density of an image in a specific area usually to make type more legible while still letting image show through.

Foil Blocking
Application of a foil image using the letterpress process but using colored foil applied with heat instead of ink.

Folding
The operation of folding a flat piece of paper into the required sequence. Folding is performed on a buckle or knife folder. The paper is passed through a series of stations, each station performing a different fold.

Fold Marks
Markings at top or side edges that show where folds should occur.

Folio
The page number. A drop folio is at the bottom of the page. A blind folio means the page number is not printed.

Font
A set of related typefaces. Often comprises roman, bold and italic faces of a matching set of characters. Helvetica and Times are fonts. Helvetica Bold and Times Roman are typefaces.

Fore-Edge
Outer edge of a page opposite the spine.

Form (Forme)
One side of a printed sheet.

Four-Color Process
In process color printing printers attempt to reproduce on paper, images that appear to have all the hues and tones of the real world using four primary colors. The four process colors are Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and blacK, commonly referred to as CMYK. Strictly speaking black is not one of the primary colors and in theory, the addition of black shouldn’t be necessary, as 100% coverage of the other three colors creates black. In the physical world, however, deficiencies in ink and paper mean that we need to add black. K is used as the reference for black as B is sometimes used to refer to blue. (See also CMYK Model.)

French Fold
A sheet which has been printed on one side only and then folded with two right angle folds to form a four page uncut section

French Folder
Folder with printing on one side so that when folded once in each direction, the printing is on the outside of the folds.

French Fold Jacket
A book jacket which is folded four times (first on the sides which form the jacket flaps, and then on the top and bottom to vertical size) before wrapping around the book.

Full Bleed
Printed colors which run all the way to the edge of a sheet are referred to as bleeds.

Full Measure
A line set to the entire line length.