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W

Wastage
Materials which are used up in the production process, or are defective, and are discarded. Also the amount of paper, board or other material which is trimmed off and discarded.

Waterless Plate
Printing plate with silicone rubber coating in non-image areas, that is printed on an offset press without dampening solution.

Watermark - Artifical
Artificial watermarks are applied after the paper has been manufactured. They simulate a true watermark but are only visible on the side that the watermark is applied. They can be applied by the paper manufacturer or by the forms manufacturer.

Watermark - True
A translucent image created in the paper on the paper machine, with the use of a dandy roller. The image is generally the name of the paper or a company logo and can be viewed from both sides of the paper. Also referred to as a genuine watermark.

Web Fed
Web presses print onto continuous reels of paper. The printed paper is folded and trimmed to finished pages at the end of the press. Buying paper in reels is more economical than purchasing in sheeted form. Web printing is suited to particularly long runs as the press can run at up to 50,000 impressions per hour, while the latest sheet fed presses can print at a maximum of 15,000. For these reasons web printing is especially economical for magazines and newspapers or other long run jobs with many pages or long runs of some types of packaging.

Web Press
Rotary printing machine in which the paper is fed from a continuous reel, as opposed to sheet fed.

Weight
The degree of boldness or thickness of a letter, typeface or font.

Wet Proofs
These are the most accurate proofs. They use the same plates that will be used on the printing press. These proofs are produced on the same substrate as the final job. They are 99% accurate. They are the most expensive proofs to produce.

Whiteness
White is white let no one tell you differently Yet papers are available in blue-white, balanced white, natural white, soft white, etc.

Don't confuse whiteness with brightness. While brightness refers to the percentage of light the paper reflects, whiteness refers to the shade of white or the color of the paper. Just compare two different white sheets that both have 90 brightness. The sheet with the blue-shite shade will appear brighter to your eye - an optical illusion, so to speak.

As you can image, different whites fit different purposes. Printing warmer tones, such as skin tones, on a blue-white sheet can give the subject a sickly gray pallor. For these images, a warmer white sheet will do the trick.

Widow
A single word left on the last line of a paragraph which falls at the top of a page.

Wire
The wire mesh used at the wet end of the paper making process. The wire determines the texture of the paper.

Wire Stitching
(See saddle or side stitching.)

Woodfree Paper
Paper made from 100% chemical wood pulp.

Word Break
The division of a word at the end of a line.

Work and Tumble
An imposition involving printing one side of the sheet and then turning the sheet from grip edge to back and printing the reverse side with the same plates.

Work and Turn
An imposition involving printing one side of the sheet and then turning the sheet from left to right and printing the reverse side with the same plates. The same grip edge is used for both sides of the sheet.

Wove Paper
Uncoated paper with a uniform, unlined surface and a smooth finish.

Writing, Text and Cover
These terms generally are applied to various weights of papers and their specific purposes. These are merely guidelines. A 24-lb. writing sheet has the same weight and thickness as a 60-lb. text, and often you will see 20/50 or 24/60 in the basis weight column under the swatchbook's waterfall.

In keeping with an overall trend for heavier weights in stocks, many designers specify 60-lb. to 70-lb. text for letterheads and use light cover stocks for complete brochures, inside and out. With an eye on tight budgets, these heavier papers can make up for a lower page count and still give a credible, dependable feel.