Banding is a lined or striped appearance, in our digitally printed newspapers.

Bleed is the area around the edge of your newspaper which contains artwork that will be trimmed off after printing. The position of the trim line varies by a few millimetres, so having some extra printed design beyond the trim line means there won't be any unprinted edges if the trimming isn't completely accurate.

The colours of the ink used to print your newspaper are cyan, magenta, yellow and key (black). These are known as CMYK colours.

Colour profiles are standard ways of managing colour. For example, to convert RGB to CMYK you might use a colour profile. For more information see colour profiles.

Crop marks are used by some presses, to show where the paper should be trimmed after printing.

This stands for 'dots per inch', and is the unit used to measure the quality, or resolution, of an image. The more dots of ink (or pixels) in each inch of an image there are, the more detail it will have.

All newspapers are folded once along the spine, but some of our newspapers are then folded in half again, perpendicular to the first fold. This second fold is called an endorse fold.

Full bleed means printing right to the edge of the paper with no margins.

In printing, false spreads refer to two separate pages that are designed to look like a single, continuous spread when printed and bound, but they are actually printed on different sheets or sections.

A greyscale image is one made entirely from black ink. This means it can only contain black, white and shades of grey.

GSM stands for 'Grams per Square Metre'. This is a standard measurement for paper weight, used in many countries around the world (but not the US where lbs is used). The number refers to the weight of one square metre of the paper. Newsprint is usually 42–60gsm. Standard office paper is usually around 100gsm.

The gutter is the inside margin or space between facing pages.

The headline is the large text at the top of an article, which sums up its subject.

InDesign is a design and layout software package made by Adobe.

The ink used to print traditional newspapers is very dry, so it rubs off very easily onto other pages or your fingers, especially from very heavily saturated pages. This is called ink transfer (also known as marking).

Ink coverage is the amount of ink on the page at any given point. There can be from 0 to 100% of each colour of ink. For example, a green colour might be 50% cyan and 50% yellow. The highest ink coverage possible is 400% (100% of each of the four ink colours).

This is the white space between the page content and the edge of the paper.

The masthead is the banner at the top of a newspaper's front page, usually containing the newspaper's title.

Newsprint is the type of paper usually used to print newspapers. It was invented by Charles Fenerty of Nova Scotia, Canada in 1844. It is a relatively low quality type of paper, supplied on a large roll or 'web'. It usually contains a high proportion of wood pulp and has a distinctive off-white colour.

A page is half of a spread, or half of one side of a sheet.

A strong wooden frame used to carry large loads of newspapers.

Pantone is the most well-known brand of spot colours.

PDF stands for Portable Document Format. It is a type of computer file and contains the content and layout of a document exactly as it will be printed. Most presses print from PDF files.

Something that looks pixellated has a blurry or mosaic appearance. If images are of a low quality (or resolution), they may look pixellated.

Flat sheets of metal that are used in offset lithography printing to transfer the image onto the paper.

These are the marks at the edge of your newspaper that are used by the printers for quality control of colours, and for guiding the machines that fold and trim your newspaper.

A single copy of a publication, usually for testing or proof-reading purposes. It can be printed (hard copy) or digital (PDF proof).

In CMYK printing, each colour of ink is printed by a separate plate. Registration refers to how well the plates are aligned with each other.

Registration black is used by printers to check the printing registration. It's made of 100% of each colour of ink used in printing and should never be used in artwork.

Resolution is the number of coloured squares (ie pixels or dots) per inch that are used to create a picture. A low resolution picture will look blocky or pixellated. A high resolution picture will look clear and sharp.

Colours on a computer screen, created by a mix of red, green and blue light are known as RGB colours.

Rich black is a black made from a mix of CMYK inks. Pure black ink will print black, but a warmer, cooler or deeper black can be made by mixing other colours with the black.

The safe area is the area in which text and images can be placed with no risk of them being cropped or too close to the edge after trimming. The safe area is usually 10mm from the trim line.

A sheet is a single piece of newsprint paper.

Areas where artwork shows through to the other side of the page in a printed newspaper.

The slug is the part of a print file that is outside the print and bleed area. It usually contains printing information and colour bars.

Spot colours are specially mixed colours of ink, printed with a separate plate on top of the CMYK process.

A spread is two pages side by side.

Stitched newspapers are held together with steel staples.

The trim line is where we aim to cut the printed newspaper if the edge is being trimmed (like a mini). Actual trimming may vary a few mm from each side of the trim line.

Trimmed newspapers like minis have the edges cut off after printing, allowing for full bleed artwork (where the artwork goes right to the edge of the page), and smooth edges.

An unembedded font may display correctly on screen, but doesn't include the information needed for printing.