Lab Color
A three dimensional color space where travel along any axis will yield a specific color
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Label
(1) Gummed paper with carton content information and the shipping address stenciled on it. This label is applied to the carton.
(2) Address labels applied to an envelope, mailer or directly on printed matter; normally customer furnished.
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Laid Paper
Paper which, when held up to the light, shows fine parallel lines (wire-marks) and crosslines (chain-marks).
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Laminate
(1) To coat with clear plastic, either liquid or film.
(2) Two separate sheets of paper joined together as a single sheet, to provide a special thickness, surface, or varying colors from one side to the other.
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Landscape
(1) A page which has a greater width than height.
(2) The reflective portions of a CD-ROM track, opposite of pits.
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Lap
(1) The slightly extended areas of printing surfaces in color plates which make for easier registration of color
(2) See: Lip.
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Lap Register
Register achieved by overlaying a narrow strip of the second color over the first color at the points of joining.
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Laser Printer
A high speed computer printer that produces hard copy of computer data, using laser technology to project an intense light beam with a very narrow width. This light creates a charge on the printer drum that picks up the toner and transfers it to paper.
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Latent Image
The image on light- sensitive material, film or plate, which must be chemically treated before it becomes visible.
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Lay Sheet
The first of several press sheets run to check lineup, register, non-printing areas and type.
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Layback
The non-printable area of a plate; the distance from the plate edge to the gripper margin, plus the gripper margin.
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Laydown Sequence
The sequence in which multiple colors are printed.
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Layflat
Type of lamination used on paper bound books.
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Layout
(1) The drawing or sketch of a proposed printed piece; the working diagram for a printer to follow.
(2) Short for Layout Sheet.
(3) Another term for Plate Prep.
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Layout Sheet
The imposition form; indicates the sequence and positioning of negatives on the flat, which corresponds to printed pages on the press sheet; also called Imposition Form. Once the sheet is folded, pages will be in consecutive order.
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Leaders
In composition, rows of dashes or dots used to guide the eye across the page; used in tabular work, programs, tables of contents, etc.
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Leading
The space between lines of type, measured from baseline to baseline; always expressed in points. For example, 8/9-point size of type is 8, amount of leading is 9 points. This may also be expressed as 8 point type, 1 point leaded.
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Leading Scale
A clear acetate scale, calibrated in points, to measure the leading of typeset copy.
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Leaf
(1) Each separate piece of paper in a book, with a page on each side.
(2) A pigmented stamping material used to decorate cases.
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Legend (Leg.)
(1) On a map or chart, the key to various signs and symbols used.
(2) The brief wording which identifies or explains an illustration, usually appearing directly below the illustration or figure; also called Figure Legend.
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Letterspacing
The placing of additional space between each letter; sometimes used to fill out lines for justification.
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Library Binding
A book bound in accordance with the standards of the American Library Association, having strong endpapers, muslin reinforced end signatures, sewing with four-cord thread, canton flannel backlining, and covers of Library or Caxton Buckram cloth with round corners.
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Library of Congress Catalog Card Number
An identification number issued by the Library of Congress upon application of the publisher; normally appears on the preliminary page which contains copyright information.
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Library Rate
A special Fourth Class mailing rate for books sent from a publisher or printer to a library, college or university only.
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Lift
(1) The number of books in a convenient handful. Books are stacked in lifts and trimmed in lifts.
(2) The number of printed or unprinted sheets in a pile for cutting by the guillotine.
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Ligature
Special letter pairs that are designed to be a single letter form. Examples: ff ffi ffl fi fl
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Light Value Imaging
A process in which red, green and blue halogen beams image photo film.
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Lightweight Paper
Paper in the 17-35 lb. weight range.
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Like-sidedness
A description of paper with similar color and finish on both sides.
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Limited Edition
A specified and limited quantity of books, often numbered and frequently signed by the author.
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Line Art
Art that has no gradations or tints
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Line Copy
Any copy suitable for reproduction without using a halftone screen.
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Line Drawing
A drawing containing no grays or middle tones. In general, any drawing that can be reproduced without the use of halftone techniques.
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Line Gauge
A ruler for measuring in points and picas.
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Line Length
See: Measure.
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Line Negative
A negative made from line copy.
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Line Screen
the distance between two congruous points on dots in a halftone pattern. The higher the linescreen
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Line Up
(1) The centering of the image in the camera at the film plane.
(2) The positioning of printed matter on a press sheet.
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Line Weight
The width, or weight, of a line, measured in points.
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Linen Finish
Book cloth which has a two-tone effect due to the white threads which show through the color.
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Linen Tester
See: Glass.
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Lining
The material which is pasted down on the backbone (spine) of a book to be casebound, after it has been sewn, glued off and rounded. It reinforces the glue and helps hold signatures together.
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Lining Papers
See: Endsheets.
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Lining Up
Adding the kraft paper, crash and headbands to a rounded book before applying cases.
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Lint
Small fuzzy particles in paper.
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Lip
The allowance for overlap of one-half of the open side edge of a folded section, needed for sewn and saddlestitch binding, for feeding the sections; also called Lap.
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Litho
An abbreviation for lithograph.
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Litho Cover
A casebound cover which is printed before cases are made, rather than being decorated by stamping after cases are made.
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Lithography
A generic term for any printing process in which the image area and non-image area exist on the same plane (plate) and are separated by chemical repulsion.
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Load
(1) To place paper, signatures or books into or on a machine for a subsequent operation.
(2) The paper, signatures or books placed into a machine.
(3) The amount of work in a center or in the entire plant.
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Logo
A company trademark; also called Logotype or Colophon.
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Long Grain
Paper made with the machine direction of fibers in the longest dimension of the sheet.
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Long Run
A print run in excess of 10,000 copies.
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Loose Register
Color that fits
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Lossless Compression
Any compression technique that preserves all of the image data. It works by removing redundant packets of data.
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Lossy Compression
compression techniques that remove certain portions of data to reduce file size. The larger amount of compression
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Loupe
See: Glass.
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Low Bulk Paper
A paper with a smooth surface.
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Low Key Picture
A continuous tone photograph made up of predominantly shadow (black) areas.
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Low Resolution Placement File
A low-grade (low resolution) image containing a relatively small amount of information, I.e., either a low number of dots per inch such as a graphic made in a paint file format at 72 DPI, or a high-resolution image displayed in low resolution to save time in monitor or printer rendering.
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Lower Case (lc)
The small letters in type, as distinguished from capital letters.
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LPD
Customer-furnished text on disk to be output to negatives by an image setter.
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LPI (Lines Per Inch)
The LPI is what defines the size of the halftone cell of an electronic image. A 150 linescreen image will have finer dots than a 133 linescreen image.
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LPI (Lines Per Inch)
(1) The measure of the number of lines printed per vertical inch.
(2) The LPI is what defines the size of the halftone cell of an electronic image. A 150 linescreen image will have finer dots than a 133 linescreen image.
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LTL (Less than Truck Load)
A motor carrier term, meaning less than a full truck load.
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LZW
An acronym that stands for Lempel-Ziv Welch. This lossless compression technique can be applied to images when converting to a PDF file. LZW compression works best on monochrome images that have repeating patterns in it.
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