We encourage you to discover meaning in some of the industry terms we work with on a regular basis. If you wish to add to the list, be our guest - simply go to our contact page and drop us a line.

Digital

AJAX
Asynchronous Javascript And XML - a method of creating interactive web applications that do not require the entire web page to be refreshed every time new data is requested from the server. Only the element of the page is refreshed, making web-applications act much faster, similar to desktop applications

CMS
Content Management System – an online administration application for a website that allows authorised non-technical staff to update content (text and images) without the need for expensive software or programming skills

Conversion tracking
For online advertising, a conversion occurs when a click on your ad leads directly to user behaviour you deem valuable, such as a purchase, signup, page view, or call to action. Some software vendors provide statistical tools to measure these conversions which ultimately help companies identify the effectiveness of their online ads

CSS
Cascading Style Sheets – a programming application that defines a website’s layout. This information is often documented in a corporate style-guide. CSS is used to separate design from functionality in web page coding, enabling websites to be more easily managed and updated

Database
Storage engines, often provided by web hosting companies, used by websites to store any kind of information including numerous and varied file formats. Web page content, mailing lists and shopping cart orders all require the versatility of a database structure

eCommerce
Electronic Commerce indicates a businesses approach to trading online. It encompasses the purchase and supply of product and service on a website typified by dynamic data base driven functionality including browser based payment and ordering facilities

Flash
Compression technology developed by Adobe for creating and viewing vector and raster animations which are often used on websites as they feature rapid download capacity. Flash permits video and audio streaming and video recording via Webcam. To view Flash content, users need to load the Flash Player plug-in

GUI
Graphic User Interface – The visual style, layout and interactive elements that make up the front-end control surface of a website or multimedia piece. An important part of the overall functionality of digital media, the GUI is often the result of months of research and usability testing to ensure that it is efficient and not frustrating for viewers

Hosting
A term most often used when referring to website addresses and their virtual location on the world wide web or internet. Web hosting service providers purchase hardware (servers) required for managing the plethora of websites on the internet. Businesses rent space on these servers to display their website to the world

HTML
HyperText Mark-up Language - is the standard scripting language used on the internet. Web pages are built with HTML tags (codes) embedded in the text. HTML defines the page layout, fonts and graphic elements as well as the hypertext links to other documents. Each link contains the URL of a web page residing on the internet

Keyword and keyword density
Keywords are words or phrases that are used by people searching for information over the internet using browser based technology. Requests are made with search engines which match responses in a ranked list according to relevancy. All information sources are searched across the internet including websites which contain content and code used by the search engines to find information relevant to the keyword search. The amount of times that a keyword or phrase appears in the page content is known as its keyword density

Links
Also known as a hyperlink, a link is an active connection in the electronic environment that allows a user to click through from a source to a destination. Links are most often used on websites where a click takes the viewer to additional relevant information within the same site or to another. Links are also found in images, multimedia productions or email addresses

MultiMedia
Any media vehicle that uses multiple mediums to communicate its messages is considered a multimedia piece. Examples include an animation with a sound track, an interactive tutorial with a voice-over, a website with an embedded video etc

MySQL
My Structured Query Language - is a widely used database engine, specialising in websites and online applications. It is open-source and freely available

Open-Source
A world wide standard used by application developers to freely provide the programming code of an application, allowing independent programmers to improve and enhance an application. Open-Source promotes rapid development by permitting a larger community of programmers to collaborate

PHP
Hypertext Pre-processor - is a scripting language that is used to create dynamic web pages and is particularly suited to Web and online application development. PHP is commonly used to extract data out of a database including MySQL and Microsoft SQL and present it on a Web page. PHP is also an open-source, freely available technology

PPC
Pay Per Click – an online advertising term describing sponsored links ranked by keyword search relevance and competitive bidding for list position. The advertiser pays every time a user clicks on that link, as opposed to every time the advertisement is displayed

Search engines
Search engines are online applications that index the world wide web. Users enter a keyword or phrase and the search engine finds and ranks relevant web pages. Some popular search engines include Google, Yahoo!, Live Search, WebCrawler, Ask etc

SEM
Search Engine Marketing – internet search engine activities associated with free search listing and sponsored links that enable websites to be ranked according to relevant keyword and phrase searches entered by customers who are either conducting research or looking to purchase goods and services

SEO
Search Engine Optimisation – the act of analysing website content and structure in the belief that, by making informed modifications, the website can rank higher in free web search listing results

SSL
Secure Sockets Layer – an encryption technology, used to enhance online security on websites that deal with sensitive data. SSL scrambles any transmitted data in a way that only the server and the individual user’s browser can unlock

Shopping cart
A software application that is programmed into a website that manages browser based eCommerce activities such as shopping orders and credit card transactions for an online store. Shopping carts allow users to select items from a catalogue, add them to their cart, and then check-out by purchasing the items. Online transactions are often protected by SSL

Site map
A structural overview of a website’s hierarchy used in planning and website development, as a navigation aid for visitors and cataloguing content for SEO. In planning, a site map is commonly visualised as a flow-chart or a bulleted list

Tags
Identifiers in code describing images, graphics and links so that search engines can catalogue website elements contextually for relevant keyword search ranking. There are a number of different types of tags including title, alt and meta

URL
Uniform Resource Locator - signifying the location of an address such as an email or website where it’s unique identification is stored on a server and is accessed via a browser

Web crawler
A web crawler (or web bot, or robot, or spider) is a program that search engines use to crawl the world wide web, and catalogue information about the pages it finds including hyperlinks. When a web crawler returns to the search engine, another program called an Indexer analyses each page to find relevant keywords so the search engine can use them in its ranked search results

XHTML
eXtensible HyperText Mark-up Language - is an improved and standardised scripting language similar to HTML and XML. It has replaced HTML as the industry standard mark-up language for website development

XML
eXtensible Mark-up Language - is a standardised scripting language often used for the uniform sharing of data between applications. It can also be used as a platform to build software applications such as Yahoo! Widgets

Printing

Bitmap image
A graphic image (picture) formed by a pattern of dots called pixels. These are displayed in black and white

Bleed
A page element that extends to the trimmed edge of the finished page

Caption
Explanatory text that accompanies a picture or illustration

CMYK
Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Black – standard ink colours used in four colour process printing

Colour correction
The changing of colours of pixels in an image, including adjusting brightness, contrast, mid-level greys, hue and saturation to achieve optimum printed results

Contrast
The tonal gradation between the highlights, mid-tones and shadows in an image

Crop
To trim an image to enable it to fit within a layout or remove unwanted portions

Crop marks
Short vertical and horizontal lines printed on paper larger than the page size of a document to indicate the finished page area

DPI
Dots Per Inch – a method describing resolution used when referring to the resolution of printed material

Ellipsis
Three points (…) used to indicate an omission of words

Emulsion
The coating that adheres to film or paper when it is exposed by the laser in an image setter

EPS
Encapsulated PostScript, a graphics format used to store high-resolution images. Line drawings (vector files) can be scaled to any size without losing resolution. Images (raster files) saved as .eps files are not scalable

Export
Saving files for use with other compatible software applications

Fold marks
Dashed lines in the bleed area that indicate where the finished document should be folded

Gutter
The vertical space between adjacent columns or the area between the inside margins of facing-page documents

Halftone
A reproduction of a continuous tone photograph created by photographing the picture through a cross-line or contact screen that contains grid pattern graduations. These tonal gradations are simulated using dots or other shapes of varying sizes in the printing process

Halftone screen
Continuous tone art (such as a photograph) is reproduced by photographing the original artwork through a cross line or contact screen. The resulting halftone image is composed of many dots, ellipses, squares or lines of various sizes that can be reproduced in offset printing

Image setter
High-resolution output device used to print documents at 1200 – 5000 dpi

HSB
Hue, Saturation, Brightness
Hue describes the colour pigment
Saturation is a measure of how much of the colour pigment is present
Brightness is a measure of the amount of black in a colour

Import
To gather an electronic file from another software application into an open document

JPEG
Joint Photographic Experts Group - standard method for compressing and decompressing digitised photos or images

Kerning
The adjustment of space between character pairs

Kb
Kilobyte equal to 1024 bytes

Laser printer
A printer that uses a laser light to transfer an electronic page to an electrostatically charged, light sensitive drum. Toner adheres to the drum where the page items are drawn and the toner is applied to paper as it passes over the drum.

Leading
Refers to the space between lines of type. A leading value includes the font size plus the space between lines

Line art
Refers to pictures that contain only black and white with no shades of gray

Margin
The space bordering the written or printed area on a page

Master page
A nonprinting page used to automatically format (or reformat) document pages. A master page can contain headers, footers, page numbers and other items that are repeated on multiple pages.

Moire pattern
An undesirable grid like pattern that can result when two or more screens are superimposed when printing

Pantone colours
(PMS) Pantone Matching System - premixed ink colours that are used for spot colour in multicolour print jobs. Pantone colours can be specified as either a spot colour or a process colour. Spot colours produce a more exacting result

Pica
A basic typographic measurement. 6 picas to an inch, 12 points to a pica

Pixel
A single dot on a computer display or in a digital image. Pixel size is determined by resolution. The smaller the pixel, the higher the resolution, the finer the detail

Point
A basic typographic measurement. 72 points to an inch

PostScript
A page description language developed by Adobe Systems used to describe fonts and graphics as well as layout of pages

PDF
Portable Document File - an electronic file format used to compress original artwork for ease of distribution and comparison

Print driver
A system file used for exchanging information between a computer and printer

Process Colour
Any colour (except CMYK, white and certain Pantone colours) can be specified as spot or process colours. When colour separations are printed, all process colours on a page are broken down into their CMYK components, each of which is printed on its own separation plate. When combined during offset printing, the process colours can reproduce full colour art

Process colour separation
To reproduce full-colour documents using offset lithography, colour pages must be broken down into the 4 process separation colours CMYK. Printers reproduce colour on an offset printing press by overlapping the information contained on the four separation plates

Proof
An intermediate stage in the document production process when pages are checked for errors and corrected

Raster file formats
Images have a colour value for every pixel. The greater the number of pixels the higher the resolution and finer the detail in an image. Examples of raster formats are bitmap, gif, jpeg, tif

Registration mark
Reference symbols on artwork used to align overlapping printing plates

Resolution
Refers to a degree of clarity of a monitor or printer usually measured in dpi. The higher the resolution, the finer the detail of the page or screen

Reversed type
Refers to light letters set against a dark background

RGB
Red, Green, Blue - a colour model based on the additive colour theory. Defined by red, green and blue components, it is used for computer monitors and other video output systems

Saturation
The amount of grey in a colour. More equates to lower saturation and less to higher

Spot colour
Any colour (except CMYK, white and certain Pantone colours) can be specified as spot or process colours. When printing separations, each spot colour on a page is printed onto its own separation plate. In contrast, process colours are broken down into their CMYK components, each of which is printed on its own separate plate

Spread
Comprises two or more adjacent pages

Template
A preformatted document that is protected from overwriting and can be used repeatedly to create new documents

TIF
Tag Image Format - files that store scanned images and can be black and white line art, grey scale or colour. These raster files cannot be scaled and therefore must be used at roughly the size they were intended

Trapping
A slight overlapping that prevents gaps from appearing along the edges of an object in  a separated image because of misalignment of movement of the separation plates on-press

Trim
Refers to the process of cutting sheets to the finished size

Vector file formats
A postscript language that describes graphic images such as logos and fonts in an economical manner by defining the outline. .eps is an example of a vector format

WYSIWYG
What You See Is What You Get. It refers to a screen display that accurately reflects the look of the final printed / published page