A process of arranging furniture around a forme where space is left at the corners, allowing for the unimpeded application of pressure in two directions. As the printer inserts furniture around the forme, a gap is left in one corner per “side” of the forme, (the same corner from each direction facing the forme) so that furniture in one direction (up-down or left-right) will not touch any neighboring furniture in the opposite direction.

Slinging ink is an idiomatic phrase printers sometimes use when they’re actually printing a job. When we’re “slinging ink,” we’re deep in the nitty gritty of a job, dialing in the ink density, the makeready, and all the other drive-you-mad details of mechanical printing.

“Slurring” refers to a fuzzy or blotchy printed result that can have a variety of causal factors, most commonly when the press’ rollers are too low. When the rollers are too low, they both deposit ink and squeegee it off onto the sides of the type/plate/etc.

The dwell—that special moment—refers to the amount of time the press remains in contact with the substrate. On a platen press, for example, the dwell is that slight pause between downstroke and upstroke during which contact takes place between the plate and the paper. The longer the dwell, the better the impression and the better opportunity for ink transmission from plate to paper.

Also known as “guide pins,” these metal gauges are inserted onto the tympan to provide a backstop for feeding the unprinted paper right before printing. Three gauges are typically used: two along the “bottom” and one along the left or right “edge” of the paper, making a consistent corner for accurate feeding.

A proofing process used by punchcutters to test the integrity of a recently-carved metal letterform. The carved punch would be held in the flame of a burning candle to collect soot; once sooty, the punch was pressed on to a piece of paper, allowing the punchcutter to see the letterform and any flaws it may have. This proof guided the punchcutter in any revisions that needed to be made.

Letterpress printers typically use one of two ink formulations when printing: oil-based or rubber-based. Oil-based inks dry quickly, but have a tendency to skin-over at the top of the can when not used very often; press cleanup is necessary immediately after printing with oil-based ink. Rubber-based inks dry via absorption and, slightly, by oxidation; they take longer to dry but stay open on the press longer.

A letterpress slug refers to a rectangular piece of lead used in hand-set composition and in the building of formes. Leading was made in incremental thicknesses so spacing between lines of type could be easily modified. Common leading thicknesses are 1-point, 2-point, 6-point, and the thickly-impressive-not-slimy-in-the-least 18-point “slug.”

A reglet is a thin strip of wood used for the same purpose as furniture, to occupy negative space around a forme in the locking-up process. Since quoins have a limited amount of expansion, reglets allow the printer to assemble the furniture as close as possible to the quoin before tightening.

A quoin (pronounced “coin”) is a mechanical device, typically a variation of expanding or advancing wedges, used to apply pressure to a forme. Printers employ quoins to lock up the forme and furniture inside a metal frame called a chase. Once lockup is complete, the chased forme can be lifted for insertion into a platen press bed. On flatbed cylinder presses, quoins perform the same function as in a chase, but the procedure is done directly in the press bed, minus the chase.

Trucks are the wheels affixed to the axle of a letterpress roller, one truck per side. The truck’s job is to control the height of the roller over the bed of the press. With trucks properly adjusted, the roller will apply a fine coat of ink onto any type-high surface in the bed of the press—handset type, a photoengraving, polymer plates, and oftentimes, unsuspecting type-high gauge-wielding printerknuckles.

The Lego of the printshop? No, they don’t fasten together. The Lincoln Log of the printshop? No, they don’t interconnect. A piece of letterpress furniture is an unassuming rectangle of non-type-high wood, metal, or plastic. Furniture is available in a variety of thicknesses and lengths, and is used to surround a forme before printing, essentially taking up the negative space between the forme and the sides of the chase.

Finishing refers to any non-printing production work associated with a project. For example, after printing a chapbook cover, the paper usually needs to be scored to facilitate easy folding; the scoring of the paper is a “finishing” procedure. Other common finishing procedures include diecutting, perforation, binding, trimming, and assembly.

The physical bite into the paper or substrate made by hand-set type, plates, or various other relief printing surfaces. The depth of impression can be modulated by the printer to maximize the intended effect of the printed piece.

A press check is a brief period of time set aside to meet with the client right before a job is printed. Its purpose is for the client–or the client’s designer–to verify and sign off on various project details, especially ink matching and, for some papers, depth of impression.

A chapbook is a simply-bound, small, typically paperback, book of a relatively short length. Authors will oftentimes publish a small collection of poetry, short fiction, or an excerpt of longer prose as a chapbook in advance of a larger publication.

In the printing universe, a substrate is the that upon which we print. This is usually, therefore, paper, in its many manifestations, as well as cardboard, chipboard, and wood veneers. We’ve even gone so far as but don’t necessarily condone or promote: tape, album covers, fabric, sugar packets, aluminum foil, plastic wrap, leaves, toilet paper, copper sheeting, string …

A volvelle, also referred-to as a “wheel chart,” is a two-piece, usually circular information dispenser. Volvelles have been around since the fourteenth century and have been used for a variety of purposes, from scientific conversions to secret agent decoding devices.

Printing foil is a film-backed pigment (available in both metallic and matte finishes) applied to a substrate through the use of pressure and heat. When completed, “hot foil stamping” differs from ink printing in that the result is opaque, and its color is not affected by the color of the base substrate.

A blind deboss refers to letterpress printing without ink. It requires a relief surface (hand-set type, a plate, etc.) just like inked letterpress printing, but it has a more subtle effect, as it relies completely on the paper color and the shadows created by the impression. Blind debossing is often used as a background textural detail.

Process printing is an additive printing technique, where final colors are (in pre-press production) broken down into component percentages of specific mixing inks, typically cyan, magenta, yellow and black. Often called “CMYK” printing, process printing is more commonly associated with offset printing. Letterpress process printing is certainly possible, but is much more time consuming and typically has no discernible impression except on the perimeter of the image area.

A halftone is a technique using dots of varying size and spacing to reproduce a photographic image in one color. When printed, a halftone image is perceived as a 2-color image: the ink color used to print the dotted-image itself and the underlying paper color. The newspaper industry, for example, used this technique for decades to print photographs alongside copy using one color of ink in one pass through the printing press.

A simple binding method that employs stitching wire to bind together folded & collated sheets of paper. The most basic saddlestitchers are glorified, deepthroat staplers, allowing the operator to easily staple through the spine. The “saddle” is the name of the angled frame the sheets of paper rest on during the stitching process. Fancier saddlestitchers allow the operator to modify the depth of the stitches, “sewing” and cutting them to a predetermined length and depth. Common examples include matchbook covers and saddlestitched magazines.

Coil binding employs either a plastic “comb” or a metal “coil” to bind a series of holepunched sheets together, enabling the sheets to lie flat as the reader turns successive pages of the bound booklet.

Singer sewing is a form of binding that employs the use of an industrial-strength sewing machine to sew the pages of a document together, either through the spine or alongside the spine. This is the strongest and longest-lasting method of binding we offer.

Used in the composition of hand-set type, composing sticks have adjustable side guides that allow for varying widths of leading. Depending on the amount of type to be set, sticks allow hand compositors to set several lines of type. When a stick is full, the completed lines are transferred to a galley, thereby freeing-up the stick for additional typesetting if necessary.

A galley is a metal tray used to store hand-set type, either in preparation for printing or for longer term storage. Printers often use these handy trays to store other print-related material, such as photoengravings, cutting dies and mysterious secrets and makeready shortcuts.

A rectangular metal frame used for locking up type, plates, or rules in a printing press. The chase is removable, allowing the printer to do the lockup and any changes or adjustments to the forme on a flat surface before insertion into the press.

A lettepress process using steel rule “dies” to cut custom shapes from a variety of substrates. The die itself is made with a series of sharpened rules (called “knives” by diemakers), which are nested in a wooden block, enabling the die to be locked up in a press.

When the design of a printed piece runs off & beyond the finished edge of the piece. Bleeds require running the job on a larger press sheet to ensure that, once the final trim occurs, inks butt up right against the finished edge of the paper.

Letterpress rules are thin metal rectangles, typically made from steel or brass and, in contrast to leading, are made to interact with the printed sheet in some way. Rules are available in a variety of thicknesses and patterns, though most commonly they’re simply “lines,” when printed (think “college-ruled notebook paper”). Other types of rules are used, without ink, for cutting, slitting and perforation.

A catchall phrase used in letterpress printing, “makeready” refers loosely to the everything one needs to do to get the press and related materials for a job ready for printing. This includes packing and roller adjustments, ink and paper preparation, press maintenance, gripper adjustments, and more.

After a press is properly calibrated for “normal” printing conditions, a printer can modify the amount of pressure applied to a forme through the use of packing, typically a varying assortment of paper and other substrates nested beneath the tympan. The amount and thickness of packing used will vary from job to job and will normally depend on a variety of factors, the most important being the intended depth of impression in the finished piece.

Tympan is a specially-treated paper used most commonly as a top sheet on platen and cylinder presses. Often manilla in color, tympan is infused with oil and has a slick, smooth hand, allowing paper to be fed across its surface without binding.

A printing press that applies pressure to the printing substrate through a flat metal plate. This plate, or “platen” is typically hinged and geared so that during the cycle of the press it moves from almost-horizontal (for paper feeding) to almost vertical (for impression). Originally made in a variety of sizes and impressional strengths, common platen press manufacturers included Gordon, Chandler & Price, Heidelberg, Victoria, Gietz and Brandtjen & Kluge.

Floods refer to large solid areas of printing. Letterpress floods have a very specific look and feel, including no discernible impression (except sometimes along the outer perimeter) and a grainy textural quality.

Also referred-to as laminating, duplexing is the process of gluing two sheets of paper together to create a thicker, beefier end result. Printing is typically done on the required paper(s) before duplexing. Gluing three sheets of paper is called “triplexing,” and can result in interesting combinations where the innermost sheet might be a color that echoes a printed color on one of the outer sheets; gluing seven sheets of paper together is called “madness.”

A catchall phrase indicating the entire spectrum of printing work that may happen in a print shop. In the past, “job work” was used to differentiate smaller-scope or lower volume printing from larger projects like book or magazine printing. As Clifford Burke once said in a Naropa workshop,”in the print shop, the project is called a ‘job’—and the job’s not done until everything’s put away.” Words to live by.

This process, also called “overlay printing,” is simply the printing of one image or form on top of another. Because printing inks are translucent, the area where the two (or more) images intersect “create” a new color, which is the combination of the individual colors of the participating images. When the same color is overprinted atop itself, the resulting intersection creates a doubling of the color’s value.

Also called a “half title,” this bookmaking term refers to the outermost-front sheet of a book (sometimes coverstock, sometimes text paper) on which the title of the book is printed. Not to be confused with the title page, which typically includes the author’s name, the publisher, and often the publication date. The bastard title has a history that stems from the days when books were printed and then bound separately, often by the book purchaser’s selected bookbinder. The bastard title served as both a quick-reference as to the contents of the book itself, and as a protective sheet atop the more-important title page.

Also referred-to as “blotter” and “coaster stock,” this is the paper used by the beverage industry for coasters and beer mats for its ability to absorb moisture. Absorbent paper is a thicker than “normal” paper, and typically has a hard surface with a slightly textured finish.

Both the measure of the thickness of paper and the tool used to do the measuring. Paper calipers are typically notated in thousandths of an inch; thus, if you had 1000 sheets of paper with a caliper of .018”, the resulting stack would be 18” tall.

A reservoir for holding and dispensing ink to the forme rollers while a press is running. The ink fountain enables a printer to re-ink the rollers without pausing and allows for greater control in monitoring ink density.

Typically T-shaped, the quoin key is a tool used to tighten or loosen the quoin, thereby increasing or decreasing the amount of pressure exerted on the forme.

A useful mnemonic: the treadle is a pedal—in fact, it’s the main point of contact between the printer and a manually-operated platen press. The printer pumps the treadle at a comfortable speed, and this motion is transferred, through a connecting “hook,” axle, and gearing, into the rotary motion that runs the various movements of the press. Through the treadle, the printer becomes a part of the press, becomes its motor, its speed regulator, its conscience.

In a printer’s universe, the case is where hand-set type and spacing is housed and organized. Type cases are typically stacked and grouped in a type cabinet, which can appear similar to flat files. For identifying purposes, a case resembles a wide, not-very-deep drawer. Type cases can be found in a few sizes and configurations, but the most-common case layout is the “California Job Case,” which was developed to simplify composition and ease the hand and wrist fatigue that often plagued type compositors.

A mechanical device used to cut leads, slugs, and in some cases, steel rules to a specific size. As long as they’re kept true—straight & undamaged—leads, slugs and rules can be cut down several times depending on a printer’s needs.

In a traditional printshop hierarchy, the printer’s devil was typically the low person on the roster, often the apprentice. The devil’s work, also called “deviling,” included mixing ink, redistributing handset type, cleaning the presses, and other general maintenance and janitorial work. Interestingly, apprentices often learned to read and write through their deviling efforts.

A perforation created by punching a series of blunt, small-diameter pins through paper. Unlike a contemporary perforation (which looks like a simple dashed line cut into paper), the pinhole perf has an old-school look and feel: before tearing, the perf is a single line of tiny holes; after tearing, the resulting edge looks like the edges of older postage stamps.

Also referred-to as “heavy art platens,” “parallel impression” presses, and “gally” presses (named after the author of the original patent, M. Gally). Universal platen presses are similar to “regular” platen presses in how they function, with one significant difference: immediately before impression the platen reaches an exactly vertical position in front of the press bed. The final approach toward impression then occurs on rails that allow a perfectly straight and even contact between platen and bed. Common universal platens include the Colts Armory (U.S.), the Victoria (Germany and England), the Swiss Gietz, the Nebiolo Ideale (Italy), the Monopol (Germany), and the Phoenix (Germany). Notice a pattern there?

A brayer is a hand-held inking roller used to roll ink smooth — on a stone or glass — and then to apply ink to type, linoleum, or other relief printing surfaces. An impertinent donkey can also be a brayer.

Dampening is a process used to introduce moisture to paper in preparation for printing. There are a variety of techniques that can be used, but the intended result is always the same: a slightly cool sheet of paper whose fibers have absorbed some moisture, allowing those fibers to relax. Dampened paper allows for a crisper impression with greater ink receptivity.

If you’re lucky enough to find an old one, the imposing stone can definitely feel big, forceful, and daunting, covered in scratches, dust, inked ghosts and the trials, mistakes, & printed victories of decades past. The imposing stone is the surface upon which a printer will lock up type into a chase, or perform other work that requires the type, die, or plate to be absolutely flat. Marble and granite are often employed, though many letterpress suppliers and shops switched over to steel imposing surfaces in the 20th century.

The process of inserting a blank, unprinted sheet of paper between printed sheets of typically heavy ink coverage. Slipsheets prevent ink from transferring from one printed sheet to another. See “offsetting.”

We like to say, tongue firmly in cheek, that “space is not a negative.” In handset type, spacing is an actual, 3-dimensional piece of metal, undercut from type-high so that it won’t be inked on press, and so that it won’t print. What it does do is leave it’s essence, it’s spaciness, in and on the page, creating the necessary contextual pause or visual breath necessary for the proper composition of the work at hand.

Shortspeak for “thin spacing.” Again, with handset type, thin spacing—brass and copper strips, pre-cut to match common type sizes—is used to fill space and tighten up lines of type in a larger lockup. Brass thins (.014”) are approximately twice as thick as copper thins (.007”), and they allow for some pretty precise typefitting, nudging, kerning, and endless hours of hairpulling..

The forme (also “form”) refers to the typeset, proofed and locked-up scheme to be placed in the bed of a press. Because it’s treated as a unique component at this stage, the forme is comprised of both the relief printing areas (type & imagery) *and* the non-printing areas (spacing & furniture). In cylinder presses, the forme is placed directly onto the press bed, while in platen presses the forme is locked-up into a chase which is then inserted into the bed of the press.

The job of the forme roller is to apply ink to the forme, specifically (and hopefully only) onto the face of the type, or onto the printing surface of the plate, and NOT onto the non-printing areas of the forme. Often in the past referred-to as “composition” rollers, these were composed of, of all things, glue, sugar, glycerin and other additives. Composition rollers were (are) highly susceptible to heat, and tend to deform and melt when they get too warm; contemporary forme rollers are comprised of a not-your-grandpa’s era synthetic rubber, which last much longer, maintain a more consistent hardness, and are relatively easy to clean.

When ink from a printed sheet rubs-off or otherwise transfers from the printed sheet onto the backside of another printed sheet, that transference is called “offsetting.” It is a process to be avoided—unless you’re experimenting with randomization or rorschachian possibilities in intentionally careless stack maintenance… in which case, go for it.

A common substrate used in printmaking, linoleum is often used by letterpress printers when printing custom imagery. Type-high blocks of linoleum are an economical and fun way of introducing a handmade or more organic look & feel to a printed piece, and can be purchased, along with carving tools, from most art supply stores.

Skip printing is the practice of throwing-off the press’ impression lever and allowing the press to go through an additional inking cycle to recharge both the forme rollers and the forme itself with ink. This is a common practice for jobs with larger solids or larger print surface areas, but it requires that keen attention be paid to maintaining a consistent ink volume & density on press.

Also referred-to as a halo, the hickey is a printed error that can resemble a bullseye or a misshapen blob with a concentric path around its entire area. Hickeys are caused by foreign materials such as dust, dirt, dried ink, etc., being introduced into the inking system and making their way onto the forme rollers or the forme itself. This can be a big issue when using older ink or having an insufficiently clean workspace. Hickeys can be dealt with only through physical manipulation, i.e. picking the offending material off the inking drum/disk, the forme rollers, or the forme. If left untended, like their amorous namesakes, your hickeys will engender bemused or disdainful attention from your audience.

Simply put, a broadside is a larger-format, single-sided print that is typically more typographic or literary in nature… think “poetry (or fill-in-the-blank-literary-genre) poster. Historically, broadsides were used as cheap, public PSAs, advertisements hawking goods & services, and even as mementos for larger public events. Contemporary broadsides typically commemorate some kind of literary event, such as the publication of a book or a public reading by a noted author, and often combine both textual and graphic elements.

When elements of a job are printed in a variety of colors from one iteration to the next, or when the substrate color varies rather than remaining one consistent color, that job is said to have different colorways. An easy contemporary example of this is a computer or mobile device that has both “day mode” and “night mode,” where the background and highlight colors vary from one mode to the other.

The eponymous (when viewed from the side & unfolded) card used as a cassette-tape insert. The j-card folded in such a way as to allow an individual to list the contents of each side of the cassette on the spine of the cassette-tape’s case, while the taller portion of the card typically covered an entire side of the case. This larger surface area was often used to list Side A / Side B track listings, or drawings, sketches, collage, etc., as the user’s tastes dictated.