Glossary
Some common publishing terms
Font: A typeface family, such as Times Roman, or Arial, in one size, including all the weights [thicknesses] and styles such as italic, bold-italic, wide, narrow and oblique. Font is the Americanised version of the older fount.The word comes from the Middle French fonte, meaning something that has been melted, referring to type produced by casting molten metal at a type foundry. English-speaking printers have used the term fount for centuries to refer to the type used to print in a particular size and typeface. The term has now, with digital print, come to mean the same as typeface, although most properly this refers to all sizes and varieties of a type family.
Leading: Named from the strips of lead laid vertically between rows of type in a typesetters block. The thickness of this strip defined how apart the rows were spaced, and how many lines would fit to a page.
Kerning: The spacing between letter pairs, particularly to address the problem of some pairs appearing to have greater space between them because they have overhanging elements - T for instance, or L. Certain letter pairs are moved closer together and others further apart so that the visual effect is closer to uniform spacing. The word comes from 'corner' because when all type was set in lead, each letter being a separate lead object, the problematic letters had a notch in one corner to enable them to be moved closer to the previous letter's overhang. Digital typesetting has algorithms which calculate the amount of auto-kerning required, which can be manually adjusted to suit individual judgement or needs.
Tracking: Tracking is the uniform addition or subtraction of letter spacing applied to all the characters in a font. Tracking is generally used to increase spacing as type gets smaller and decrease it as type gets larger. Or to fit text to spaces in a more pleasing way as design elements.
Extent: This means the number of pages in a book. Books are generally printed on large sheets which are then folded and cut with the pages in correct sequence, usually in multiples of eight pages. The extent of a book is therefore a multiple of eight or sixteen.
Ascender: That part of a lower-case letter which stands above the half way mark; such as b or d.
Descender: That part of a lower-case letter which falls below the line on which the type sits; such as q, p or j.
Proofreading: Checking a typeset manuscript for mistakes; grammar, punctuation, spelling, consistency, references, accuracy, layout, headings, etc. A skill many think they can do, but few can effectively.
Running head: a line of type that runs along the top of a page which repeats a heading; traditionally this is left hand pages the title of the book, right hand pages the title of the chapter.
Footer: As above along the bottom of a page which, typically, carries the page numbering.
Recto: Right hand pages.
Verso: Left hand pages.
Folio: The actual page number of any given page.
Galley proof: A largely defunct term meaning a copy of text for checking before it is finally assembled for the print run. Named from 'galleys' which were long metal trays used to hold the lead type after it was set, before the print run began. Now the word proofs is used, meaning a set of printed pages, or, more commonly these days a PDF electronic file, made from the finished typeset book.
Glossary: A list of words used which might be unfamiliar to the reader.
Prelims: The first pages of a book before the book proper starts, containing the copyright page, title and half title pages, contents, dedication, glossary, foreword, preface, acknowledgements and introduction. These pages are usually numbered in roman numerals so that the first page of chapter one can start on page one.
Foreword: a piece of writing at the beginning of a book, before the introduction, written by someone other than the author of the book.
Preface: This generally gives some information on how the book came about, how the idea was created, and is often completed with thanks and acknowledgements to people who were helpful to the author.
Acknowledgements: Are often given separately on their own page, and can include the author's mother for having him/her, spouse for putting up with ditto, colleagues who have helped, professionals who pulled it all together so they sounded like a good writer, and their dog.
Afterword: A piece of writing at the end of the book [rarely used] which draws something together which the author felt didn't belong in the last chapter. A conclusion to add something relevant.
Drop cap: A large, often ornate, initial letter at the start of the text beginning a chapter, that drops into the lines of text below forming a small graphic. There are complete alphabets of decorated capital letters in a variety of styles, such as art nouveau, and by famous engravers such as the Dance of Death decorated capitals by Hans Holbein [the younger]. Was once very common, but is rare now in most book genres, possibly due to the fast pace of production of most books, along with budget cutting.
Typesetting:Laying text on a page. While the early trade of typesetter was highly skilled, it would be a mistake to assume that because so much now is done on and by a computer, typesetters require no skills. This is far from the case, as can be seen very often in the work of amateur DTPers with no knowledge or experience of the complexities of real typesetting software which enables the typesetter to finely adjust the text to be aesthetically pleasing as well as making it easily accessible for communication.
Advance: Money paid to a writer while they write a book and before it is published, offset against royalties earned. Unlikely for unpublished authors, only usually for authors who are very well established and therefore will have guaranteed sales.
Bleed: Where artwork, usually pictures, is intentionally allowed to extend past the cutting edge of the paper [trim marks] so printing to the edge of the page.
Body text: The text used in the main body of the work, excluding all headings and extracted and emphasised pieces of text.
Gutter: The area between two facing pages.
N-dash: A horizontal dash the length of a capital N in the chosen typeface. ALT-0150
M-dash: A horizontal dash the length of a capital M in the chosen typeface. ALT-0151
N space: A space the width of a capital N in the chosen typeface. CTRL-Shift-N
M space: A space the width of a capital M in the chosen typeface. CTRL-Shift-M
Hard copy: A paper printout, as opposed to onscreen files.
Mark up: A hard copy prepared with typesetting instructions written on it.
Resolution: Measurement to express image quality. Measured in dots per inch or DPI.
Revises: Versions of a typeset book as corrections are marked and entered. Ist revises is the initial typesetting according to the copy editor's instructions. 2nd revises are printed after the first are proofread by a reader and the author and corrections sent to the typesetter. Third revises should be the very last set. With PDF files replacing hard copy in many cases, sets of revises can be dispensed with and thus a lot of paper and energy saved.
Proof correction marks: A set of standard symbols written within text and in the margin on proofs by a copy editor to indicate any corrections needed to the typesetter. They are also used by the proofreader to indicate where corrections have been missed or new ones spotted or introduced.Ranged left: Type lined up to the left and leaving the lines ragged on the right.
Ranged right: Type lined up to the right with lines on the left ragged.
Justified: All lines of text within a paragraph are equal lengths, making straight lines of text on both left and right. This is achieved by automatically stretching and squeezing lines for best fit.
Manuscript: The original hand-written, typed or word-processed document produced by the author.
Typescript: Another name for a manuscript, but only one which is typed. Mostly these days a Word doc is supplied often without paper print out or hard copy as it is called.
Typo: A typographic error, in other words, a slip of the finger whilst typing, Everyone does it, and it usually takes someone else to spot it.
WYSIWYG: This means what-you-see-is-what-you-get but that's arguable as what you get can depend on a number of factors when it comes to printing, such as colour balance and definition, and all you ever see is a semblance on a screen, as close possible to what you might get.
Crop marks: Marks printed on the page to show the printer where to trim the book pages. These are often accompanied by register marks so that the register of each page can be fine checked with the others.
CMYK Standing for Cyan Magenta Yellow BlacK, this has been the standard colour definition for print for some time, as four colour process printing uses these colour inks.
RGB Standing for Red Green Blue this is the colour system favoured by many digital cameras and for web graphics, and increasingly for digital printing.
OCR Standing for Optical Character Recognition, it is the system which reads scanned documents containing text and translates it into actual text which can be edited, rather than a graphic file or picture. Originally somewhat hit or miss a few years ago, OCR is now so sophisticated than very few mistakes crop up if the documents scanned are clean and unfolded.
Perfect binding This is book binding where cover and pages are glued together at the spine, most paperbacks are made this way.
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