Glossary — A
A
An International Standards Organisation range of sizes of paper. ISO paper sizes are all based on a single aspect ratio of square root of 2, or approximately 1:1.4142. The base A0 size of paper is defined as having an area of 1 m2. Rounded to the nearest millimetre, the A0 paper size is 841 by 1,189 millimetres. Successive paper sizes in the series A1, A2, A3, and so forth, are defined by halving the preceding paper size across the larger dimension. The most frequently used paper size is A4 measuring 210 by 297 millimetres. A4 – ISO paper size 210 mm x 297 mm used for letterhead.
Accordion fold
Binding term for two or more parallel folds that open like an accordion. Leaflets and maps often use accordion folds.
Additive color mixing
Color system in which red, green and blue light are mixed to form other colors. Televisions and computer monitors use additive color mixing.
Additive color primaries
The colors red, green and blue. When white light is broken down into it’s componant parts, a rainbow is created. Dividing the rainbow into approximately equal thirds results in red light, green light and blue light. By combining the three colors of light together, white light is created. The above drawing shows the principle.
Adhesive binding
A method of holding the pages of a publication together by applying an adhesive to the spine of the gathered pages. Also called perfect binding.
Adobe
The American company, a leading manufacturer of software for graphic design, publishing, Web, and the printing industry. Founded in 1982, among the software products manufactured by the company, Photoshop, Illustrator, Acrobat, InDesign, GoLive, Premier and many others. The company is the developer of the language Postscript and of PDF, which has become the de facto standard in the corporate document management and publishing industry. Headquartered in San Jose, California. It has offices in North America, Europe, the Pacific, Japan and Latin America.
AI
Abbreviation for Adobe Illustrator – Popular drawing program for Macintosh and PC. The name also refers to the corresponding file format.
Air
– Large white areas in a design layout.
– Adobe AIR is a technology that allows the use of web standards like Adobe Flash, HTML or Ajax to create applications that run on Macs, Windows or Linux systems.
Albumin paper
A coated paper used in photography; the coating is made of albumen (egg whites) and ammonium chloride.
Align
To line up type or other graphic elements using a horizontal or vertical line as the reference point.
Alpha channel
A special channel reserved by some image-processing applications like Photoshop for masking or retaining additional color information.
Anti-offset spray
A dry or liquid spray attachment on presses to prevent ink from transferring from the top of one printed sheet to the bottom of the next. It is sometimes called set-off spray.
Art paper
A paper evenly coated with a fine clay compound, which creates a hard smooth surface on one or both sides.
Assembled view
In illustration, a term used to describe a view of a drawing in its assembled or whole format.
Autoflow
A page layout program feature that automatically flows text from column to column and page to page.