Saddle Stitching: Stitching where the wire staples pass through the spine from the outside and are clinched in the center. Only used with folded sections, either single sections or two or more sections inset to form a single section.
Safety Paper: A paper that shows sign of erasure so that it cannot be altered or tampered with easily.
Satin Finish: A smooth delicately embossed finished paper with sheen.
Scaling: The enlargement or reduction of an image or copy to fit a specific area.
Score: Impressions or cuts in flat material to facilitate bending or tearing.
Screen Angles: The placement of halftone screens to avoid unwanted moire patterns. Frequently used angles are black 45deg, magenta 75deg, yellow 90deg, and cyan 105deg.
Screen Ruling: A measurement equaling the number of lines or dots per inch on a halftone screen.
Screened Print: A photo print made by using a halftone negative; also called a velox.
Scum: Unwanted ink marks in the non-image area.
Self Cover: A cover made out of the same paper stock as the internal sheets.
Shadow Dot: The lowest density of a halftone image.
Sharpen: To decrease the dot size of the halftone which in turn decreases the color strength.
Sheetwise: The printing of two different images on two different sides of a sheet of paper by turning the page over after the first side is printed and using the same gripper and side guides.
Short Ink: Ink that is smooth and creamy but does not flow freely.
Show Through: A problem that occurs when the printing on one side of a sheet is seen from the other side.
Side Guide: The guides on the sides of the sheet fed press that position the sheet sideways as the paper is led towards the front guides.
Side Stitching: Stitching where the wire staples pass through the pile of sections or leaves gathered upon each other and are clinched on the underside.
Signature (Section): Printed sheet (or its flat) that consists of a number of pages of a book, placed so that they will fold and bind together as a section of a book. The printed sheet after folding.
Silhouette halftone: A halftone with the background screen removed.
Silverprint: Reference, brownline proof.
Slitting: A term to describe the process of cutting of printed sheets by the cutting wheels of a printing press.
Smoothness: That quality of paper defined by its levelness which allows for pressure consistency in printing, assuring uniformity of print.
Soft Dot: An excessively large halo around a dot in a photograph that causes a fringe that diminishes the dot intensity.
Spine: Back edge of a book.
Spiral Bind: A binding whereby a wire or plastic is spiraled through holes punched along the binding side.
Spot Color: Small area printed in a second color.
Spread: A film image that is larger than the original image to accommodate ink trapping. Reference, trapping
Stabbing: To bind a series of pages with wire staples such that staples enter from the front and back simultaneously, neither side being long enough to exit the opposite side.
Stability: The quality of paper to maintain its original size when it undergoes pressure and moisture changes.
Stagger Cutting: A process of cutting many sheets from the same parent sheet in which the smaller sheets have different grain directions; also called dutch or bastard cutting.
Star Target: The Graphic Arts Technical Foundation, GATF has established various quality control images; the star target appears along with the color bar and helps the pressman detect any irregularity in the ink spread. Reference, Color Bars
Static Neutralizer: A device on a printing press that minimizes the amount of static build up on paper as it passes through the press.
Step And Repeat: A process of generating multiple exposures by taking an image and stepping it according to a predetermined layout.
Stet: A proofreader's symbol that is usually written in the copy margin, that indicates that the copy, which was marked for correction, should be left as it was.
Stock: A term for unprinted paper or other material to be printed.
Strip-In: To add an element, such as copy that is shot separately, and then stripped into place on a goldenrod flat.
Stripping: Originally, the removal of the photographic emulsion with its image from individual negatives and combining them in position on a glass plate. Now the use of stripfilm materials, and the cutting, attachment, and other operations for assembling. The positioning of positives and negatives on the flat before proceeding to platemaking.
Stumping Or Blocking: Impressing book covers, etc., by means of hot die, brass types or blocks.
Super Calendaring: A machine procedure that produces a high finished paper surface that is extremely smooth and exceptional for printing.
Synthetic Papers: Any petroleum based waterproof papers with a high tensile strength.