waffling
See embossing.
warm color
A red tone rather than a blue tone. Orange, red, and yellow are generally considered to be "warm" colors.
wash drawing
A black and gray watercolor with black line art which will be reproduced as a halftone.
wash marks
An uneven or lighter density on a print's leading edge created when the printing plate has too much water. Other Term: water streaks.
water finish
A gloss created on paper by applying water to the paper web as it passes through rollers that "iron" and compress the paper fibers.
water streaks
See: wash marks.
water-based ink
An ink that uses water as the drying agent rather than a solvent.
watercolor
Artwork created by applying translucent water soluble paint or dyes to a paper substrate.
waterleaf
A highly absorbent paper.
waterless printing
See lithography (waterless).
watermark
A translucent mark or image that is pressed into fine paper during the papermaking process and which is visible when the paper is held up to a light.
wavy-edged paper
Paper with wrinkled or wavy edges caused by water damage.
waxer
A machine that melts and applies a thin coating of adhesive wax to a paper. Once often used to create camera ready artwork, this process has been largely replaced by computerized film, paper, or plate devices.
web
A roll of paper or other material that is fed by rollers through a printing or converting process. Also see: sheetfed press.
web offset
A continuous band of substrate fed from a wound roll through an offset printing press.
web press
A rotary press that prints on a continuous web, or ribbon, of paper fed from a roll and threaded through the press. See also: sheetfed press.
webfed
A printing press that uses a web, not cut sheets. See also: sheetfed.
wedding paper
An elegant, refined paper with minimum glare.
weight
See: basis weight.
weight (character)
A description of typographic forms or variations (e.g., light, regular, bold, extra bold).
well
An individual etched gravure pit.
wet printing
Printing on ink that is still wet with a second or different color. See also: trapping.
wet rub
A measure of a material's resistance to rubbing while it is wet. See: abrasion resistance.
wet strength
A measure of a wet paper's resistance to pulling or bursting.
wet trapping
Overlapping an ink that is still wet with a second or different color. See also: trapping.
wet-on-wet
See wet trapping.
wet-strength paper
A water and tear resistant paper that when wet retains a minimum of 15% of it's dry tensil strength.
wetting up
A screen printing term referring to placing ink in the screen and distributing it evenly with the squeegee in preparation for production.
what-you-see-is what-you-get (WYSIWYG)
Used when a computer application shows an image's position, size, elements, etc. on screen as it will be printed.
white
A combination of all the color wave lengths. A color visually equivalent to natural sunlight. See also: white light.
white light
Natural sunlight or light created by combining equal portions of each light wavelength from 400 to 700 nm. See spectrum; visible spectrum.
white space
That part of an image that is free of text or images.
widow
A word, partial word or short line of text at the end of a paragraph, or a single line of text at the top of a page. See also: bad break; orphan.
wire stitch
See: saddle stitch.
wood cut
A printing method that uses a carved wood block or surface as the printing plate. The non-image areas are carved away, and ink is applied to the remaining raised areas. Other Term: wood engraving.
wood engraving
See: wood cut.
wood free
Paper made without groundwood or mechanical pulp. Other Term: groundwood free.
wood type
Letters carved into blocks of wood. See also: wood cut.
word processor
A software application used to create text documents (e.g., Microsoft Word).
word wrap
The process by which a computer application automatically moves a word to the next line down when the available line space for text has been used up. This occurs without the person using the application pressing the "return" key. This feature can also create problems for those printing someone else's file, since the words may also automatically "shift" when opened on a machine other than the one that created the document. As a result, some words may move to a location that is unacceptable to the original document's creator. This is why printers request all the image and font files together with a document, or, as an alternative, a PostScript or PDF file.