Journalism Jargon P-R - Andrew Noakes - Motoring Writer

P

page furniture

Standard page elements such as folios, footers and section headings which appear on all (or most) pages.

pagination

The number of pages in a feature, section or entire publication.

pass

Approve a page layout or proof.

PDF

Portable Document Format - industry standard file format used to supply pages for printing or internet download.

perfect binding

Square-backed magazine binding, where folded sections are stacked one on top of another and pages are glued at the spine, as in a book. More expensive than saddle stitching but can cope with large numbers of pages.

Photoshop

Industry-standard image manipulation software; now also used as a verb - 'we'll Photoshop that out'.

plate

Thin aluminium sheet onto which the page image is etched during the repro process. The plate prints the image onto the paper in a printing press. Normally four separate plates and printing operations are required, one for each of the four 'process' colours - cyan, magenta, yellow and black (see CMYK).

points

A measure of type size and leading; 1 point = 1/72 inch = 0.35mm

portrait

Upright format, taller than it is wide; said of pictures or whole publications.

positional

Low-resolution image used only to show the position of the image on a page, not to output the final page.

pre-flighting

Checking that PDF documents are error-free and contain all the data needed for printing; usually done by specialist pre-flight software.

proof

A hard-copy (usually) of a page layout, used to check for errors.

pp

(A number of) pages.

Q

QuarkXpress

Once the industry-standard page layout software, now largely replaced by Adobe InDesign

R

ragged right justified

ragged right

Non-justified alignment where the left margin of text is straight and the right margin varies (as in the left-hand column above). See alignment.

rag out

Using a scan of a cutting from a newspaper or magazine in a subsequent article, particularly where the cutting is deliberately made to look torn.

rebate

A gap between the edge of an image and the rule around it, caused by incorrect size or position of the image.

registration

Printing of each colour plate in exactly the same position as the others; 'out of register' effects include colour fringes and blurry images.

repro

Reproduction - the process of taking page layouts and turning them into printing plates.

repro house

Company specialising in print repro.

RGB

Red, green, blue; colour system used by computers and monitors.

roman

Normal-weight type, as opposed to light, bold or black.

rule

A thin line, often between columns of copy.

run of paper

An ad not planned for a special position, can run wherever is convenient.

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