- A4
- 210 mm by 297 mm paper size.
- A5
- 148 mm by 210 mm paper size.
- Absolute Positioning
- A method of positioning the printhead by sending a command
with a measurement relative to the leftmost position of the printhead.
- ACK
- Short for acknowledgment. A control code - ASCII character 6 - sent to a sending station
or computer by the receiving unit to acknowledge either that the receiver is ready to
accept transmission or that transmitted information has arrived without error. The ability
to send and received acknowledgment signals is built into software; the signals themselves
are invisible to the user.
- Acute Accent
-
`
- AFM File
- Adobe Font Metrics file. See Font
Metrics.
- Agate Line
- A system used for measuring column depth in the newspaper industry. Fourteen agates
equal an inch.
- Ampersand
- & - Sometimes called "and" or "concatenation" symbol.
- Angle
- The slope of a character from the vertical position. The slope
is typically to the right.
- Angle Quote
and 
. Also known as chevrons. - Single angle quotes:
and 
.
They are similar, but not identical to the less than and greater than symbols.
- Angstrom
- Å
- Anti-Aliasing
- In computer graphics, the smoothing of the jagged, "stairstep" appearance,
known as aliasing, in graphical elements such as diagonal lines, curves, and circles.
Aliasing occurs when the resolution of an image is too coarse to
achieve the appearance of a smooth line or curve. Anti-aliasing software routines can blur
the roughness of a jagged edge by shading or coloring neighboring pixels to make the
transition between light and dark (or between two colors) less distinct and therefore less
immediately visible.
- Apex
- The outside point of a character where two strokes
meet, as in A, M and W.
- AppleTalk
- An inexpensive local area network developed by Apple Computer that can be used by both
Apple and non-Apple computers for communication and sharing or resources such as printers
and file servers. Macintosh computers plug into the network through the printer port (Serial port B); non-Apple computers, such as IBM PCs, must be equipped
with AppleTalk hardware and suitable software. AppleTalk is a baseband network that
transfers information at a raw speed of 230 kilobits per second and links up to 32 devices
(nodes) using CSMA/CD (Carrier Sense Multiple Access with Collision Detector) over a
distance of about 1000 feet on shielded, twisted-pair cabling known as LocalTalk cable.
The network uses a layered set of protocols similar to the ISO.OSI (International
Organization for Standardization/Open Systems Interconnection) model and transfers
information as packets of data called frames. AppleTalk supports connections to other
AppleTalk networks through devices known as bridges, and it supports connections to
dissimilar networks through devices called gateways.
- Arm
- The projecting upward or horizontal strokes not enclosed within a
letter, as in E, L and K.
- Ascender
- Part of a lowercase character which extends upward above the x-height of print. For example, "b" has an ascender,
"c" does not.
- Ascent Line
- The upper boundary that defines the maximum height of a font.
- ASCII File
- A text file which consists of entirely ASCII characters between 32
and 126.
- ASCII
- American Standard Code for Information Interchange. ASCII maps each character to a
unique number so that computers, monitors, terminals, and printers can understand each
other.
- Asterisk
- The * is an asterisk. Sometimes called a "star".
- At Sign
- @
- Auto Line Feed
- When this feature is enabled on a printer, each carriage return code is automatically
accompanied by a line feed. This is not necessary with software
which sends a linefeed after each line and can result in unwanted double-spacing.
- Autorotation
- A printer's ability to "rotate" a font so that it can
print in either portrait or landscape
orientation
- AUX
- Logical device name for auxiliary device; a name reserved by the MS-DOS operating system
for the standard auxiliary device. AUX usually refers to a system's first Serial port, which is also know as COM1.
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- B5
- 182 mm by 257 mm paper size.
- Backslant
- Typefaces that slope towards the left. Commonly decorative and novelty typefaces.
- Bail
- The small bar on a printer or typewriter which holds the paper against the platen.
- Ball Printer
- A printer that uses a type ball, a small ball-shaped print head
that bears fully formed characters on its surface. The printer rotates the ball to line up
characters and then strikes the ball against a ribbon. This is the method used by the IBM
Selectric typewriter.
- Band
- In printing graphics, a rectangular portion of a graphics sent by the computer to a
printer; the technique of dividing a graphic into bands prevents a having to construct an
entire image in memory before printing it.
- Bang
- Another name for the exclamation point. (!)
- Bar Code
- The special identification code printed as a set of vertical bars of differing widths on
books, grocery products, and other inventory. Used for rapid, error-free input in such
facilities as libraries, hospitals, and grocery stores, bar codes represent binary
information that can be read by an optical scanner. The coding can include numbers,
letter, or a combination of the two; some codes include built-in error checking and can be
read in either direction.
- Baseline
- The lowermost point of letter, not including descenders. For
example, the baseline of a line of text would be the lowermost point of letters such as a
and x, (excluding the tails of p and q).
- Baud
- The rate of transfer on a serial port. On an RS-232 port, this
refers to the number of bits per second (BPS).
- Bêzier Curve
- In computer graphics, a curve that is calculated mathematically to connect separate
points in smooth, free-form curves and surfaces of the type needed for illustration
programs and CAD models.
- Bi-directional
- (Communications) Bi-directional communications refers to the ability of the printer and
computer to send information back and forth. This allows the printer to return
configuration information and detailed messages.
- (Printhead movement) In bi-directional printing mode, a dot-matrix or inkjet printer can
print in both directions, left and right. This makes printing faster because the printhead does not have to return to the beginning of each line
before printing. However, bi-directional printing may not be suitable for precise
alignments.
- Binary
- Base 2 number system in which 0's and 1's are used to represent computer bits.
- Bind
- To associate two pieces of information with one another, most often used in terms of
binding a symbol (such as the name of a variable) with some descriptive information (such
as a memory address, a data type, or an actual value).
- Binding
- The additional space added to the side of a page to allow for binding pages.
- Bitmap
- A bit-map is an array of pixels which form a graphics picture or character.
A raster device, such as a dot-matrix printer, uses a
bit-map to place printed dots on the paper to form a word or picture.
- Blackletter
- From the manuscript lettering of fifteenth-century Northern Europe, these typefaces are tightly woven and heavy. Old English is an example.
- Bleed
- A graphic that extends to the edge of the paper. Also refers to the capability of a
printer to add two bit-mapped images to each other so that all the
features of both are printed. Some printers choose to overlay objects instead of bleeding
them together.
- Body Size
- The distance from the top of the highest ascender or capital to the bottom of the lowest descender
plus the remaining space within the point size. This distance and the
white space vary from one typeface to
another according to the intention of the designer. The casual impression of a typeface as
being large or small on its body, however, is primarily caused by its x-height.
- Body Face
- A typeface suitable for the main text in a document rather than
for headings and titles. Because of their readability, fonts
having serifs, such as Times and Palatino, are good body faces,
although sans-serif faces can also be used as body text.
- Bold
- A style in which characters are thicker or darker than plain
characters.
- Border
- A decorative line or pattern along one or more edges of text or illustration.
- Bounding Box
- A PostScript document comment describing the boundary of the
printed image.
- Bowl
- The enclosed round or oval stroke in a character, as in p,
g and 0.
- Brace
- The { and } are braces. Sometimes called "curly brackets".
- Bracket
- The [ and ] are brackets. Sometimes called "square" brackets.
- Breve Accent
- Built-in Fonts
- Fonts that a printer comes with from the factory located in ROM
chips on the printer's logic board.
- Buffer
- The place in the memory of the printer which stores the data not yet printed. When the
computer sends the data to the printer faster than it can print it, the printer stores the
incoming data in the buffer.
- Bullet
- A small dot or square used to set off items in a list.
- Examples:
-
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- Calligraphy
- The art of beautiful handwriting. In calligraphy, the characters are formed by the
natural movement of the hand as opposed to manipulated movements in built-up letter fonts. Calligraphic fonts are based on calligraphy such as:
- Callout
- The text used to point out and identify parts of the illustration. Also, a heading that
appears in a narrow margin next to the body copy.
- Cap Height
- The measurement from the baseline of a font
to its capital line.
- Capital Line
- The imaginary line that runs across the top of capital letters.
- Caption
- Descriptive text accompanying a figure or drawing.
- Caret
- ^
- Typically found over the 6 key on a keyboard. In some languages, the caret is used as an
exponentiation operator. For example, the expression "3 ^ 2" represents the
number 3 raised to the second power. The caret is also used to represent the Control key
on the keyboard. For example, "^Z" means hold down the control key and press the
Z key.
- Caron
- Carriage
- The assembly that holds the platen of a typewriter or a
typewriter-like printer. On a standard typewriter, the platen and carriage move past a
fixed position within the typewriter housing, where the keys strike the paper; the platen
rotates to advance the paper held in the carriage. On most impact printers for computers,
however, the print head moves back and forth across a platen,
which rotates but does not move horizontally; in such machines, the assembly that carries
the print head is often called the print-head carriage assembly.
- Carriage Return
- Sending the Carriage Return control character the
printer causes the printheadprinthead@upm.hlp toprinthead@upm.hlp return to the left-most
print position.
- Cartridge
- A generic term that can refer to any of several devices that are self contained, usually
in some kind of plastic housing. examples: disk cartridge, font
cartridge, ink cartridge, memory cartridge, ribbon cartridge, ROM cartridge, tape
cartridge, toner cartridge.
- Cartridge Font
- A font stored on a cartridge which is inserted into the printer.
- Cedilla
- Centered
- Centering a block of type, line or character within a line measure.
- Centronics Interface
- A standard interface for parallel data transmission. This is
most commonly used on PC-compatible printers.
- Character
- A character is any symbol that can be stored and processed by a computer. The computer
stores the characters as ASCII codes.
- Character Compensation
- The uniform reduction of white space between all characters
in a line or block of type.
- Character Graphics
- The characters sent to the video board and printer that represent symbols not found on a
typewriter keyboard. These symbols are lines used in drawing boxes, foreign letters, math
symbols, etc.
- Character Set
- The set of printable characters for a given font.
- Character Spacing
- Pertaining to type design, an allocation of space on each side of a character in order
to achieve a visual balance of white both inside and outside a character when used in
combination with other characters. Character spacing is a compromise solution that is
improved upon by text kerning.
- Character Width
- The horizontal dimension of a character, including its assigned white
space on the left side and right side.
- Chevron
- See angle quote.
- Cicero
- A unit of measurement common in Europe, used in the Didot system,
that is similar to a point. It is equivalent to 44.5 millimeters.
- Circumflex Accent
- A mark similar to a caret but used as an accent over another
character such as: â
- Circumflex
- Clip Art
- Art that can be freely reproduced and published.
- Clipping
- In computer graphics, cutting off the portion of an image that lies beyond a certain
boundary.
- Clipping Path
- A polygon or curve that is used to mask an area in a document. Only what is inside the
clipping path appears when the document is printed. Often used in PostScript.
- CMY
-
- Cyan Magenta Yellow. A mixing model or method of describing colors used with many
printing systems. CMY starts with white and subtracts percentages of cyan, magenta and
yellow to yield the desired colors. Subtracting 100 percent of all three colors results in
black and subtracting no color produces white. This approach is well suited to printing
because it is based on the absorptive properties of pigments.
- CMYK
-
- A color model, similar to CMY, that adds a black component to the cyan, magenta and
yellow of CMY to ensure deeper blacks.
- Code Page
- In MS-DOS versions 3.30 and later, a means of providing support for character sets and
keyboard layouts used in different countries. A code page is a table that relates the
binary character codes used by a program to keys on the keyboard or to the appearance of
characters on the display or printer.
- Collated
- Copies stacked in the order they are printed. Multiple copies are separated.
- Colon
- :
- Color
- (Typography) The visual tone or texture created by a block of
type on the background of a page. Type selection, line width, leading, x-height, word and character spacing all affect color.
- Color Separation
- The process of printing each of the colors in a document as a separate document so that
the printer can print each separation using a different-colored ink. Many color PostScript printers can do this automatically.
- Comp
- Abbreviation of comprehensive, used to describe the pre-production trial printout that
shows exactly how the finished product will look.
- COM Port
- Communications port. The device name of the computer's serial
port.
- Composite
- Output of a color printing process that refers to colors mixed together during the
printing process.
- Compressed
- Text which is narrow or tightly spaced. Usually at least 15 characters per inch.
- Contour
- A typeface with a black outline around its characters.
- Control Character
- A character which is interpreted by a printer or terminal as a
command instead of being printed. Most characters below ASCII 32 are
control characters.
- Control Sequence
- A string of characters which begins with a control character and causes a printer to perform a command.
An escape sequence is a control sequence which begins with the escape character.
- Copyright Symbol
- ©
- Correspondence Quality
- See letter quality.
- Counter
- The fully or partially enclosed white space in a character,
as in p, q and g.
- Courier
- Courier is a typeface which looks like typewriter print. It is
usually used in a fixed-width, or mono-spaced, font which means that
all characters are spaced evenly.
- CPI
- Characters Per Inch. See Pitch.
- CPS
- Characters Per Second. Used to measure the speed of a dot-matrix
or daisywheel printer.
- Crop Marks
- Lines drawn at the edges of pages to mark where the paper will be cut to form pages in
the final document.
- Cropping
- Cropping is the process of removing part of an image so that only a small piece of the
image is left. It is like trimming a photograph to fit into a frame.
- Crossbar
- The connecting horizontal stroke between two stems
in a character, as in A and H; or the projecting stroke necessary for the formation of a
letter, as in f and t. Also known as cross-stroke or bar.
- Cross-Hatching
- A type of shading made up of regularly spaced lines. Cross-hatching is one of several
methods for filling in areas of a graphic.
- Currency Symbol
- ¤
- Cut
- To remove text or graphics from the area you are working on and store it in a clipboard
or scrap area.
- Cut-Sheet Feeder
- A device which attaches to a printer so that it may automatically feed cut-sheet paper.
- Cycolor
- A color printing process that uses a special film embedded with millions of capsules
filled with cyan, magenta, and yellow dyes. When exposed to red, green or blue light, the
respective capsules become hard and unbreakable. The film is then pressed against
specially treated paper, and the capsules that have not been hardened in the previous
process break, releasing their colors onto the paper.
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- Dagger
- † is a dagger. ‡ is a double dagger. Daggers are commonly used
as footnote reference marks.
- Daisywheel
- A daisywheel printer prints using a wheel of letters. A daisywheel printer provides letter-quality print, but is slow and cannot print graphics.
- Dash
- -
- An em dash is a wider dash (the width of a "M") and an
en dash is narrower (the width of a "N").
- Data Bits
- The number of bits used for each character, usually 7 or 8.
- DB Connector
- Any of several types of connectors used to facilitate serial and parallel input and output. The number following the initials DB (data
bus) indicates the number of lines (wires) within the connector.
- DB25 Male:
DB9
Female: 
- Decorative
- Ornamental typefaces which negate any true style consistencies
from family to family.
- Derived Font
- A font that has been scaled or modified from a previously existing
font. For example, the Macintosh operating system can generate characters in font sizes
other than the installed range of sizes.
- Descender
- A descender is the part of a character which descends below the baseline
of type. For example, "y" has a descender but "x" does not.
- Diacritical Marks
- An accent mark above, below, or through a written character.
- Didot System
- The standard European typographical measuring system. The Didot system originated in the
eighteenth-century French type foundry, Didot.
- Dieresis
- Same as umlaut.
- DIN Connector
- A multi-pin connector conforming to the specification of the German national standards
organization (Deutsch Industrie Norm). An 8-pin DIN connector is used as the serial port connector on the Macintosh Plus, Macintosh SE, and
Macintosh II.
-
- Dingbats
-
- Decorative characters such as bullets and arrows.
- DIP Switch
A switch or set of
switches often used in computer and peripheral hardware. DIP switches are often used in
printers to set emulation mode, page length, communications and character set settings. - Disk Memory
- A floppy or hard drive built in to the printer. Printer updates can be downloaded
directly to the printer from the floppy on an occasional basis, or font and macros may be
downloaded to the printer from the floppy on a daily basis. Hard drives are typically used
to extend the printer's non-volatile memory for mass storage of fonts and macros.
- Display Face
- A typeface suitable for headings and titles in documents,
distinguished by its ability to stand out from other text on the page. Sans-Serif faces such as Helvetica and Avant Garde often work well
as display faces.
- Display Cut
- Typefaces designed for optimum setting at 14 points and above.
- Dithering
- A technique used to create the illusion of varying shades of gray (on a monochrome
display or printer) or additional colors (on a color display or printer). Dithering relies
on treating areas of an image as groups of dots that are colored in different patterns.
Akin to the print images called halftones and, to some extent, paintings done in the
pointillist style, dithering takes advantage of the eye's tendency to blur spots of
different colors by averaging their effects and merging them into a single perceived shade
or color. Depending on the ratio of black dots to white within a given area, the overall
effect is of a particular shade of gray. Similarly, red dots interspersed with white ones
create the illusion of varying shades of pink.
- Dot-matrix Printer
- A dot-matrix printer fires pins against a ribbon to form characters and graphics.
Dot-matrix printers are generally inexpensive and can print on multi-part forms, but do
not have the print quality or flexibility of laser and ink-jet printers.
- Double Line Spacing
- Separating each line of printed text by a blank line.
- Double Quote
or 
and 
- Downloadable Fonts
- Downloadable fonts or "soft fonts" are fonts which can be
stored on disk and downloaded to the printer when needed.
- DPI
- Dots Per Inch. The number of dots per inch a printer can print determines its quality of
resolution.
- Draft Mode
- The fast, low-quality default text mode of most dot-matrix
printers.
- Driver
- A driver is a piece of software which allows a program, such as a word-processor, to
communicate with a piece of hardware, such as a printer.
- Drop Cap
- Capital letter at the beginning of a chapter that is in a
larger font and drops down into the paragraph one or more lines of
text
- Duplexing
- The capability of a printer to print on both sides of the paper in one job.
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- Ear
- The small projecting stroke attached to the bowl
of a lowercase g or the stem of a lowercase
r.
- Element
- The print element is the part of the printhead that strikes
the ribbon on a dot-matrix or daisywheel
printer. On a thermal transfer printer it is the heating
element.
- Elite
- Character spacing based on 12 pitch,
10 point size.
- Ellipsis
- A character resembling three dots which denotes a continuation.
- Em Space
- During the days of hot metal, the em space, as well as the en space
and thin space were actually non-printing blocks of metal used
to add space between printed elements. An em space was equal to the square of the point size being used, and most likely, it was equal to the width of the
capital M. For example, a 12-point em was 12 points high and 12 points wide. In
photo-typesetting, the em is generally typeface sensitive,
proportional to the design of the typeface.
- Emulation
- A printer emulates another printer if it excepts the same commands and prints the same
output.
- En Space
- In both hot metal and photo-typesetting, the en space is equivalent to half the width of
an em space.
- Encapsulated PostScript File
- An Encapsulated PostScript File is a graphics file in a special PostScript
format and is meant to be inserting into a document as a graphics file. It is not the same
as a simple PostScript file.
- Escape Sequence
- A series of characters beginning with the escape character
which causes a printer to perform a command. See also Control
Sequence.
- Ethernet
- A local area network developed by Xerox in 1976. Ethernet uses a bus topology and relies
on the form of access known as CSMA/CD to regulate traffic on the main communication line.
Network nodes are connected by coaxial cable or by twisted pair wiring.
- Expanded
- Type that is wide or loosely spaced. Usually at most 8 characters per inch.
- Extended Character Set
- The characters above ASCII 127 in 8-bit
symbol sets are referred to as extended characters.
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- F4
- 210 mm by 330 mm paper size.
- Face Up
- When the paper coming out of a printer is stacked so that the printed side is face up, a
multi-page document is sorted in the wrong order. But printers that stack paper face up
can usually feed heavy paper such as envelopes better. Most printers have at least two
optional paper feeding paths, face up and face down.
- Factory Defaults
- The factory default settings of the printer are the settings with which it was shipped
from the factory. These include panel and DIP switch settings.
- Feathering
- Adding an even amount of space between all lines on a page or column to force vertical justification.
- Feed-Holes
- The holes along the side of computer paper that allow it to be tractor
fed.
- FinePrint
- FinePrint smoothes out lines and curves that would normally appear jagged. Most printers
have a fixed resolution of 300 dpi. If you look closely at curves or diagonal lines
printed on such a printer, you can see tiny jagged edges. For each line or curve, the
LaserWriter calculates the best possible edge to a very high degree of accuracy, and then
renders that edge using FinePrint technology for a noticeably smoother printed result.
Apple's newer PostScript printers incorporate Apple's FinePrint
technology.
- Firmware
- Program or data that is stored in a ROM chip or hardware rather than on a floppy or hard
disk.
-
- Fixed Pitch
- Fixed Pitch is a type spacing where all the characters are spaced
evenly as opposed to proportional spacing.
- Fixing Rollers
- The rollers in a laser printer that melt toner onto the
paper.
- Florin
-
- Also know as the mathematical function symbol.
- Flush
- Aligned with something, usually one side of a page.
- Font Attribute
- An attribute of a font is one of the characteristics which make up
that font, for example pitch or boldface.
- Font Metric
- The width and height information for each character in a particular font. AFM (Adobe Font Metrics by Adobe) and TFM
(Typeface Font Metrics by Hewlett-Packard) are two standard file formats for storing font
metrics information.
- Font
- A font is a collection of characters with a consistent size and style.
- Form Feed
- Sending the Form Feed control character to a printer
will cause it to eject the current page.
- Frequency
- Another way of describing lines per inch.
- Friction Feed
- Friction feed relies on the pressure of the platen against the
paper to feed the paper. This makes it possible to use single sheets or envelopes instead
of tractor feed paper.
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- Galley
- A sheet containing a proof of unpaginated type composition.
- Grave Accent
- Greater Than
- >
- Greeking
- The use of random letters or marks to show the overall appearance of a printed page
without showing the actual text. Greeking is used when the page is displayed too small for
text to be read such as in a Print Preview mode.
- Guillment
- Same as Angle Quote.
- Gutter
- Similar to binding, except that the space is on the inside margins for double-sided pages rather than the outside.
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- Hacek
- Same as Caron.
- Hairline Serif
- These serifs are thin, unbracketed horizontals and are most
prevalent in Modern letters.
- Halftone
- The printed reproduction of a photograph or other illustration as a set of tiny, evenly
spaced dots or variable diameter that, when printed, visually blur together to appear as
shades of gray.
- Handshaking
- The signals sent between the computer and the printer to ensure that information is
being received correctly.
- Hanging Indent
- The first line of a paragraph that extends to the left of the rest of the lines in the
same paragraph.
- Hanging Punctuation
- Pertaining to a justified block of type, punctuation marks
appear outside of the line measure, hanging into the left and/or
right margins. This creates the visual effect that only the text is
justified.
- Hash Mark
- Same as Number Sign.
- Hat
- Same as Caret.
- Helvetica
- Helvetica is a sans-serif typeface. It
is usually proportionally spaced and is often used for
logos and headings.
- Hexadecimal
- A base-16 numbering system. The values 10-15 are represented by the characters A-F.
- HPGL
- Hewlett-Packard Graphics Language. A standard language for representing vector graphics.
- Hungarian Umlaut
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- Image Adapt
- A Hewlett-Packard technology that compresses data or lowers resolution to print complete
graphic images when there is not enough printer memory. Some detail may be lost.
- Ink-Jet
- An ink-jet printer prints by firing jets of ink at the paper.
- Inline
- A typeface with white lines within its character strokes.
- Interlock
- A switch that detects whether the printer's cover is open and prevents it from going on
line until the cover is closed.
- Italic
- A character style in which the characters are slanted to the right.
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- Justification
- Justification is the insertion of extra space between words in lines of type so that
both the left and right margins are even and smooth.
- One way to justify is to insert extra spaces equal to the width of a whole character
between some words. A better way to justify is to use microspacing
in which small, equal amounts of space are added between all words in a line. .
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- Kerning
- Kerning is the reduction in space between certain combinations of letters in a proportionally spaced type.
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- Landscape
- Landscape orientation refers to paper oriented so that it is wider than it is high, like
a landscape painting. This is opposite of portrait orientation.
Laser printers typically offer a choice of portrait or landscape orientation. On
dot-matrix and inkjet printers, landscape refers to orientation of the printout to the printhead.
- Laser Printer
- A laser printer uses a laser beam to generate an image, and then transfers it to paper
electro-statically.
- Leaders
- Dotted or dashed lines that fill the space between tab settings.
- Leading
- (Pronounced "ledding") The insertion of extra space between lines of type. On
old printing presses, this was done by inserting strips of lead between the cast type.
- LED Printer
- Like laser printers, LED printers are electrophotographic page printers, but instead of
a laser, LED printers use an array of light emitting diodes (LEDs) to expose the
photoreceptor.
- Legal
- US Legal size paper is 8.5 by 14 inches.
- Legibility
- The clarity of individual characters and how quickly they're recognized. Legibility
refers to type design, such as the shape, weight and relative size of the letters.
- Less Than
- <
- Letter
- 8.5 by 11 inches paper size.
- Lettering
- The art of constructing a letter with more strokes than the
essential parts of the letter as in type designing; characters that are constructed or
built-up.
- Letter Quality
- A letter-quality printer produces type that is equal in quality to the best typewriters.
All laser printers and daisy-wheel
printers are letter-quality, as well as some ink-jet printers and
24-pin dot-matrix .
- Line Art
- Object drawings consisting of lines with no shading.
- Line Feed
- Sending the Line Feed control character to the printer
causes the print head to advance one line. On some printers it
also causes the print head to return to the left of the carriage.
- Line Spacing
- A method of measuring the amount of space between each printed line. Line spacing is
generally measured from the top of one printed line to the top of the next printed line.
- Linotronics
- A common type of high-quality printer, called an imagesetter, capable of printing at
resolutions of up to 2540 dots per inch. Linotronic printers are too expensive for homes
or most offices, but you can obtain Linotronic output by taking a PostScript file to a
Service Bureau.
- Loop
- The lower portion of a lowercase g.
- Lowercase
- Small letters. The term "lowercase" is derived from the days of hot metal,
where the small letters were kept in a separate type case on the lower shelf, and uppercase letters were kept on the upper shelf.
- LPT Port
- Logical device name for line printer; a name reserved by the MS-DOS operating system for
up to three parallel printer ports named LPT1, LPT2, and LPT3.
LPT1, the first parallel port, is usually the same as the primary MS-DOS hard-copy output
device PRN (the logical device name for the printer).
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- Macron
- Manual Feed
- Inserting the paper into the printer by hand one sheet at a time.
- Margin
- An area of white space surrounding a document. A margin is
generally measured from edge of paper to edge of print.
- Masthead
- Section of a newsletter or magazine giving the title and details of the ownership,
advertising, subscription dates, and so on. Sometimes used to describe the banner on the
front of a magazine.
- Measure
- The length of a line expressed in picas and points
or ciceros and corps. Also known as line length or column
width.
- Mechanical Alignment
- The accurate and precise alignment of one element to another or within a specified area
as opposed to visual alignment.
- MEt
- Memory Enhancement Technology. Hewlett-Packard's technology which effectively doubles a
printer's standard memory through a variety of font and data compression methods.
- Microspacing
- The insertion of extra space in a document in units smaller than the size of one
character. Microspacing is typically used in justification.
- Modern
- Displaying design characteristics from the late eighteenth century, modern typefaces have an extreme variation between thick and thin strokes, narrow, straight-sided counters, a
vertical curve stress; and straight, unbracketed serifs.
- Modified Sans Serif
- Several of these typefaces were inspired by chiseled letters
that were originally brush written. Their stems are flared, giving the
appearance of a slight serif. Also know as glyphic.
- Moire Pattern
- An undesirable grid pattern caused by gray scaling methods with too few grays, low resolution, etc.
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- Nasalization Sign
- Same as Ogonek.
- Near-Letter Quality
- (NLQ) A near-letter quality printer produces type that is close, but not quite as good
as a typewriter. 9-pin dot-matrix printers achieve
near-letter quality by printing characters in two passes for a total of 18 dots per
character. See also Letter Quality.
- Non-Latin
- These typefaces include Arabic, Armenian, Cyrillic, Greek and
Indian languages.
- Number Sign
- #
- Numeral Space
- A space, typically used in tabular settings, that denotes the
body width of a numeral.
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- Oblique Font
- A font is oblique if the characters are slanted or leaned to either
direction instead of being upright.
- Octal
- Base 8 numbering system where the only digits used are 0-7.
- Ogonek
- Oldstyle
- Possessing design characteristics from the fifteenth to the seventeenth century,
Oldstyle typefaces have a subtle contrast between the thick and
thin strokes; an inclined curve stress;
bracketed, and concave serifs.
- Ornamental Typefaces
- This includes inline, contour, outline and outline-shadow typefaces, as well as other miscellaneous categories collectively.
- Orphan
- When the first line of a paragraph appears of by itself at the bottom of a page.
- Outline
- A typeface with only the silhouette of its characters delineated
by a black outline. Also known as open.
- Outline Shadow
- An outline typeface with a shadow effect
that typically appears to the right of its characters.
-
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- P1284 Parallel Interface
- Second generation parallel port specifications that are backward compatible with Centronics. These include the Hewlet-Packard BiTronics
interface, the Microsoft ECP (Enhanced Communication Port) interface, and the Xircom EPP
(Enhanced Parallel Port).
- Paragraph Mark
- ¶
- Parallel
- Parallel data transmission is the transmission of several bits of data over parallel
wires. It is usually faster than Serial which transmits data one bit
at a time. Most parallel printers use a Centronics
interface.
- Parentheses
- The ( and ) are parentheses.
- Parity
- The parity of a number is its trait of being either odd or even. Often, in transmission
of groups of bits of data, an extra bit is added so that the total of the bits is always
odd or always even. This is called the parity of the data. An error in transmission has a
50 chance of changing the parity, so if many errors are present, the receiving party will
be warned
- Paste
- To insert text or graphics from a clipboard or scrap area into the area you are working
on.
- PCL
- Abbreviation for Printer Command Language. PCL was invented by Hewlett-Packard and is
implemented in the HP LaserJet and DeskJet series of printers. See also PCL Printer Control Language.
- PCX File
- A graphics file in the PC Paintbrush format. A standard for raster
graphics.
- PDL
- Page Description Language. A printer language based on describing a page rather
than a line by line image. An example is PostScript.
- Perforation
- The perforated lines on fanfold paper which allow the pages to be separated easily and
the sprocket hole strips to be removed.
- PhotoGrade
- Apple PhotoGrade technology allows you to produce near-photographic-quality images from
your desktop. Laser printers, including the LaserWriter, create shades of gray by printing
a pattern of black dots in an area. If these dots are arranged in an appropriate pattern,
the area appears to be a uniform shade of gray. The more variations in the size and
pattern can produce, resulting in smoother, more natural gray transitions. Using the
enhanced resolution of the LaserWriter II, the PhotoGrade system can produce many more
shades of gray than previously possible on a 300-dpi laser printer.
- PIC File
- Abbreviation for Lotus Picture File format A standard for representing vector graphics.
- Pica
- Pica is 10 character per inch print. It is the default for most printers.
- (Typography) A standard typographical measuring unit from the
Anglo-American Point System. Six picas nearly equal an inch.
- Pilcrow
- Same as Paragraph Mark.
- Pitch
- The number of characters per inch of print.
- Platen
- The roller bar in a dot-matrix or daisywheel printer against which the print is struck onto the
paper.
- Point
- In typesetting, a point is one 72nd of an inch. The height of
type is usually expressed in points. However, this is not a measurement of the size of the
letters but of the metal block onto which they were cast. Therefore, the letters of
different typestyles of the same point size may not be the same size.
- A typical Pica typestyle uses letters that are 10 points high with 2 points of leading. This works out to 12 points and 6 lines per inch.
- Portrait
-
- Portrait orientation refers to paper oriented so that it is taller than it is wide, like
a portrait painting. On dot-matrix and inkjet printers, it refers to the orientation of
the printed image to the printhead. See also Landscape.
- PostScript
- A page description language developed by Adobe Systems. See also PostScript Command Language.
- Pound Sign
- Same as Number Sign. Sometimes used to refer to the pound sterling.
- Print Head
- The printing element in a dot-matrix
or inkjet printer which puts marks on the paper.
- Print Spooler
- A print spooler is a program which stores the output from the computer in either memory
or on disk and then sends it to the printer in the background so that the user can
continue working, without having to wait for the printer to print.
- Proportional Pitch
- Proportional type consists of letters of different widths. For example, "w" is
wider than "i".
- When using proportionally-spaced type, letter spaces cannot be counted for alignment as
on a typewriter. The features of the word-processing or publishing software, such as tabs or indents, must be used to properly align text.
- Protocol
- A standard format for sending handshaking signals.
- Pull Feed
- The method of tractor feeding in which the tractor pulls the
paper around the platen as opposed to Push Feed.
- Pull-Out
- Quotation extracted from a newsletter or magazine article and printed in larger type in
the column, often blocked off with horizontal Rules.
- Push Feed
- The method of tractor feeding in which the tractor pushes
the paper around the platen as opposed to Pull
Feed.
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- Queue
- The list of files a spooler creates that are waiting to be
printed.
- QuickDraw
- The part of the (Macintosh) Toolbox that performs all graphic operations on the
Macintosh screen. QuickDraw performs all screen display operations on the Macintosh,
including graphics and text. QuickDraw printers use this same language.
- Quote
See also Vertical Quote, Double Quote,
and Angle Quote.
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- Raster Font
- A raster font is a font which is made up of bit-mapped
characters.
- Raster Graphics
- Bit-mapped graphics as opposed to Vector
graphics.
- Readability
- The level of comprehension and visual comfort when reading printed material. Readability
is concerned with how the type is arranged on a page. Readability is affected by line length, word spacing, character
spacing and leading.
- Registered Symbol
- ®
- Relative Positioning
- A method of positioning the printhead by sending a command
with a measurement relative to current position of the printhead.
- Reset
- To reset the printer is to return the printer to its default state and settings.
- Resolution
- The resolution of a printer is a way of measuring its print quality. The resolution is
usually measured in dots per inch.
- RET
- Resolution Enhancement Technology. Hewlett-Packard's technology which increases the
apparent resolution of a document by using microfine toner to add partial pixels around
the edges of images.
- Ring
- The / is a ring.
- River
- A series of white space between words that appears to flow
from line to line in a document. This problem occurs when trying to justify a column of text that is too narrow or on a printer that
isn't capable of microspacing.
- Rules
- Horizontal or vertical lines added to a page.
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- Sans-Serif
- A typeface is Sans-Serif (meaning without serifs)
if it is made up of mostly straight lines and does not have ornamentation at the edges of
letters. For example, Helvetica is a Sans-serif typeface.
Sans-Serif is also called Gothic, Antique or Grotesk.
- Scalable Font
- A scalable font is a font which can be scaled to any size needed.
Most scalable fonts are made of vector images because they
are easier to size.
- Scaling
- Scaling is the process of sizing an image.
- Screamer
- Another name for the ! (exclamation mark).
- Script
- These typefaces have joining and/or separate characters
patterned after handwriting styles. There are three variations: Calligraphic, English
Round-Hand, and Brush Script.
- SCSI
- Pronounced "scuzzy"; acronym for Small Computer System Interface, a standard
high-speed parallel interface defined by the X3T9.2 committee of
the American National Standards Institute. A SCSI interface is used for connecting
microcomputers to peripheral devices, such as hard disks and printers, and to other
computers and local area networks. Up to seven devices, not including the computer, can be
attached through a single SCSI connection (port) through sequential connections called a
daisy chain. Each device has an address (priority number). Only one device at a time can
transmit through the port; priority is given to the device with the highest address.
- A SCSI port is standard on most Apple Macintosh computers and can be installed in IBM PC
and compatible computers using an expansion board.
- Section Symbol
- §
- Self-test
- A diagnostic of a printer initiated by the user from the printer's control panel.
- Semicolon
- ;
- Serif
- A serif is a small ornamental mark at the ends of a letter. Serifs have many variations,
such as hairline, slab and wedge. Serifs originated as the points at which Roman
stonecutters inserted their chisels into the stone. Serifs can be seen on typefaces such as Times New Roman.
- Serial
- Serial data transmission is sent one bit at a time. See also parallel.
- Slab Serif
- Originating from the nineteenth century, these typefaces have a
monotone stroke weight; a vertical curve stress;
and, typically, unbracketed, square-cut serifs of the same weight as
the stems. Slab Serif is also known as Square Serif or Egyptian.
- Slant
- Same as Slash.
- Slash
- /
- Solidus
- Same as Slash.
- Sprocket Feed
- See Tractor Feed.
- Sprocket Holes
- The holes along the edges of fanfold tractor-fed paper.
- Spur
- The pointed projection off the main stem of a lowercase
b.
- Stem
- The main vertical or oblique stroke(s) in a character as in B, W,
X.
- Sterling
- £
- Stress
- The degree of incline formed by the relationship between thicks and thins of the bowl in round, non-linear letters. There are two kinds of stress,
inclined or vertical. Also known as curve stress or axis.
- Stroke Font
- See Scalable Font.
- Stroke
- (Character set) Same as Slash.
- (Typography) The essential lines which make up a character.
- Style
- The style of a typeface is whether it is plain, bold, or italic.
- Subscript
- Subscripted type is printed one-half line lower than regular print.
- Superscript
- Superscripted type is printed one-half line higher than regular print.
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- Tab Stop
- A predetermined setting for which text will begin when encountering a tab character.
- Tab
- A tab is a control character. In standard use, it
causes the text to begin at a predetermined tab stop.
- Tail
- The short diagonal stroke that rests on the baseline in R, K and below in Q.
- Text Cut
- Type designed for optimum setting of 6 to 12 points.
- TFM File
- Tagged Font Metrics file. See Font Metrics.
- Thermal Printer
- A thermal-printer prints by heating spots on special heat-activated paper.
- Thin Space
- Traditionally equivalent to 1/5 the width of an em space. Today
usually the width of a period or comma.
- Tilde
- ~
- Tile
- The portion of the page in an oversize publication that is printed on a single sheet of
paper. To make a complete page, you must assemble and paste together the tiles.
- Timeout
- A timeout occurs when a device has waited too long for another device to send or receive
a transmission.
- Top of Form
- The point on the paper at which the printer assumes is the first printing position.
- Tracking
- Decreasing or increasing the amount of space between letters in a word.
- Tractor-Feed
- A method of feeding paper into a printer which uses sprockets to pull fanfold paper by
holes along the sides.
- Trademark
- ™
- Transitional
- Having design characteristics from the mid-eighteenth and nineteenth centuries,
Transitional typefaces have a notable variation between thick and
thin strokes, a horizontal bar on the lowercase
e, a near vertical curve stress, and essentially flat-topped serifs.
- TrueType
- A font technology which enables WYSIWYG printing by providing
matching screen and printer representations through support in the operating system.
TrueType is also metrically compatible with PostScript Type 1
fonts and provides greater hinting and character set support. TrueType was jointly
developed by Apple and Microsoft.
- TTY
- (Teletype Terminal). An early computer terminal that did not have a CRT- all information
was printed. They were essentially an automated manual typewriter.
- Twip
- 1/1440th of an inch. Derived from "twentieth of a point".
- Type Family
- A progression of design weights, with corresponding Italics, Condensed, Expanded and Ornamental styles within a type design. A family can have
as few as two weights. Example: The Helvetica family may include
Helvetica, Helvetica Bold, Helvetica Oblique, Helvetica Narrow, Helvetica Outline, etc.
- Type Font
- A set of characters that have a unified design and purpose; letters, numerals,
punctuation, Diacritical Marks or symbols of a type
design needed for a particular purpose. Synonymous term for character
set. In the technological sense, the term "font" is the
hardware or software carrier of the character set.
- Type Style
- A synonymous term for typeface.
- Typeface
- A single Style variation in a Type Family,
such as light, bold, Condensed or Outline. Example: Times Roman Bold ItaIic.
- Typesetting
- The craft of setting text or display copy from typefaces for
output at medium and high resolutions.
- Typography
- The art and technique of selecting and arranging type styles, point sizes, line lengths, line spacing, character spacing,
and word spacing for typeset applications.
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- Unidirectional
- In unidirectional mode, a printer only prints when the printhead
is moving in a certain direction. See also Bi-directional.
- Unprintable Region
- An area around the edge of the paper where some printers cannot print.
- Uppercase
- More commonly known as capital letters. See definition of lowercase.
- Umlaut
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- Vector Graphics
- Graphics that are composed of lines and geometrical shapes rather than bitmaps.
- Vertical Quote
- Visual Alignment
- The estimated alignment of one element to another or within a specified area. Alignment
is not precise, but appears aligned to the human eye. See Mechanical
Alignment for contrast.
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- Waist Line
- The imaginary line that runs across the top of the lowercase
letters, excluding ascenders. Also known as x-height.
- Wedge Serif
- A triangular shaped serif.
- White Space
- Empty space created by spaces, tabs and extra lines. Also used to
refer to empty space in a bitmapped graphic file.
- Widow
- The last line of a paragraph that, due to pagination, appears at the top of a page all
by itself.
- WYSIWYG
- "What you see is what you get". The ideal situation, when what you see on the
screen is exactly what is printed.
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- X-height
- The height of lowercase letters (not including descenders and ascenders).
- X-ON/X-OFF
- A method of handshaking used in serial
communications which prevents data from being sent faster than it can be processed.
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- Yen
- ¥
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These terms and definitions are taken from the following sources:
The Art & Technology of Typography, CG Compugraphic, Compugraphic
Corporation Type Division, Wilmington, Massachusetts, 1988.
Dictionary of Computer Terms, Downing, Douglas and Michael Covington, Barron's
Business Guides, Georgetown, Ontario Canada, 1989
PostScript Language Reference Manual, Adobe Systems Incorporated,
Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, Reading, Massachusetts, 1989.
The Printer Bible, Foerster, Scott, Que Corporation, Carmel, Indiana, 1990.
Apple LaserWriter IIf/IIg User's Guide, Apple Computer, Inc., Cupertino,
California, 1991