A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z

G

Gang
Group of frames or impositions in the same form of different jobs arranged and positioned to be printed together.

Gang Run
Printing more than one job on the same press at the same time.

Gatefold
A fold involving the fore-edge of a page being folded back in toward the spine along a parallel fold. A double gatefold is when a sheet is folded along two parallel folds so that both edges meet in the middle like a double gate.

Ghosting
Faint images of print appear in solids or halftones following the printed image.

Gloss Ink
For use in lithographic and letterpress printing on coated papers where the ink will dry without penetration.

Gloss Lamination
A glossy sheet of film is laminated over the printed paper or board. Generally used for jackets and book covers, as well as for gift bags. Also called PP lamination.

Glossy Art
A shiny coating on a paper is called a gloss finish. Gloss coatings allow very little ink absorption and offer excellent color definition and contrast.

Golden Ratio
The rule devised to give proportions of height to width when laying out text and illustrations to produce the most optically pleasing result.

Gothic
Typefaces with no serifs and broad even strokes.

Graduated Screen
An area of image where halftone dots range continuously from one density to another, producing a gradient.

Grain Direction
During the paper manufacturing process fibers fall into a grain direction. Coated paper and paper with heavy ink coverage will crack slightly on the surface when folded against the grain. For this reason the grain direction needs to be taken into account when printing. Cracking can be controlled by creasing sheets before folding and/or by laminating or varnishing.

Gravure
A rotary printing process where the image is etched into the metal plate attached to a cylinder. The cylinder is then rotated through a trough of printing ink after which the etched surface is wiped clean by a blade leaving the non-image area clean. The paper is then passed between two rollers and pressed against the etched cylinder drawing the ink out by absorption.

Grayback
Board where a sheet of thin-coated white paper has been laminated over gray, unbleached board. Suitable for packaging and board books. Higher-quality projects should substitute 1/s art board, as the surface is much smoother, whiter and has a higher quality finish.

Greeking/Greek Type
A software device where areas of gray are used to simulate lines of text. One of desktop publishing's less clever methods of getting around the slowness of high resolution display on old PCs.

Grip Edge
The edge of a sheet which is taken by the grippers to be carried through the press. A blank margin must be left at the grip edge of the sheet to accommodate this.

Grippers
Metal fingers that grip the edge of a sheet to feed it through the press.

GSM
Instead of assigning different basic sizes and basic weights to their papers, the metric system treats every paper equally and measures its weight by grams per square mete (GSM). A number of mills list the GSM values alongside the writing and text weight. 60-lb. text sheet has the same weights as a 24-lb writing sheet. The two are just marketed differently.

Gutter
Space between pages in the printing frame of a book, or inside margin towards the back or binding edge. Or, the central blank area between left and right pages.