English glossary of printing
There are 576 entries in this glossary.D
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Dagger and double dagger |
symbols used mainly as reference marks for footnotes. |
| Dash |
a short horizontal rule used for punctuation. |
| Defining Color |
The color, usually the darker color, whose shape defines the object. The defining color should not be choked or spread, as that would compromise the image. |
| Densitometer |
A quality control devise to measure the density of printing ink. |
| Density |
The degree of color or darkness of an image or photograph. |
| Descender |
any part of a lower case letter that extends below the x- height, as in the case of y and j. |
| Diazo |
A light sensitive coating used on printing plates. |
| Die |
Metal rule or imaged block used to cut or place an image on paper in the finishing process. |
| Die cutting |
Curing images in or out of paper. |
| Disk Operating System (DOS) |
software for computer systems with disk drives which supervises and controls the running of programs. The operating system is 'booted' into the computer from disk by a small program which permanently resides in the memory. Commom operating systems include MS-DOS, PC-DOS (IBM's version of MS-DOS), CP/M (an operating system for older, 8-bit computers), Unix and BOS. |
| Display type |
larger type used for headings etc. Normally about 18 point or larger. |
| Dot |
An element of halftones. Using a loupe you will see that printed pictures are made many dots. |
| Dot Gain |
When an ink dot enlarges through absorbtion on a porous paper. This affects the overall tone of an image, as the size of the dot is equivalent to the tone it represents. |
| Dot matrix printer |
a printer in which each character is formed from a matrix of dots. They are normally impact systems, ie a wire is fired at a ribbon in order to leave an inked dot on the page, but thermal and electro-erosion systems are also used. |
| Double burn |
Exposing a plate to multiple images. |
