Paper and Ink

Recycled-content and post-consumer recycled content
A recycled-content product is an item that contains recovered materials. Recovered materials are wastes that have been diverted from conventional disposal such as landfills for another use. Recovered materials include both pre-consumer and post-consumer wastes. Pre-consumer materials are generated by manufacturers and processors, and may consist of scrap, trimmings and other by-products that were never used in the consumer market. Post-consumer material is an end product that has completed its life cycle as a consumer item and would otherwise have been disposed of as a solid waste. Post-consumer materials include recyclables collected in commercial and residential recycling programs. Recycled-content products may contain some pre-consumer waste, some post-consumer waste or both. A product does not have to contain 100 percent recovered materials to be considered “recycled,” but clearly the higher the percentage of recycled content, the greater the amount of waste that is diverted from disposal. All papers today have recycled-content.

Paper finishes
There are three standard finishes: gloss, matte and uncoated as described below:

Gloss
Paper with a surface similar to that of a glossy photograph or light magazine cover making photographs stand out and look rich. Excellent for full-colour printing.

Matte
Paper that exhibits low gloss and high ink holdout. Popular for brochures, flyers, newsletters, posters and catalogs that require high-quality colour reproduction. The paper is glare-free with minimal paper gloss, making it a great choice when there is alot of text. It is superior to that of uncoated papers.

Uncoated
Smooth finish paper with no coating, glare-free paper with the ability to take pen or pencils. An absorbent and fast drying paper, ideal for projects requiring no patterned or solid background. Well-suited for halftone reproductions. This uncoated surface stock is guaranteed safe for desktop laser printing and copying. Popular for calendars, catalogs and newsletters.

Paper and coverstock weights
The short answer is that 500 sheets of bond paper with a size of 17" by 22" have a weight of 20 pounds. The manufacturer would cut a sheet into four letter-size sheets, so a 500-sheet ream of 20-pound bond paper weighs 5 pounds. If it was something other than bond paper, then the size of the standard sheet used to determine the weight might be different. For example, coverstock is heavier and its standard sheet size is 22.5" by 28.5". In general, the more a sheet of a certain grade of paper weighs, the thicker it is. The metric system has a much better way of measuring paper. There are generally three types of papers for three distinct purposes: Text papers, bond or writing papers and coverstock.

Text
Also known as book or offset papers, text paper can have a coated or uncoated finish. These thinner, lightweight papers are often used for publication interiors, and sell sheets to name a few.

Bond or Writing
Bond or writing papers are used for letterheads and must be able to run through office copy machines and laser printers. The most commonly recognized bond or writing stocks are: 20lb bond - this standard weight paper is equivalent to 50lb text. 24lb bond, a preferred weight for most business papers like letterhead and is equivalent to 60lb text.

Cover
Coverstocks are heavy in weight, rigid and not easily folded. They are generally used for publication covers, business cards and postcards. They have a coated, gloss or matte finish. Common weights for coverstocks include:
65lb - A lightweight, uncoated coverstock
80lb - The next heavier weight, coated or uncoated coverstock
100lb - Mid-weight coated coverstock

Large format
For pop-up and large banners, we use a no-tear flexible plastic material. For posters and most drymount signage we use a gloss paper. Other materials are available, please contact us. Printed using Eco-Solvent Digital Printing Technology, which provides photographic quality on all media for indoor as well as outdoor without lamination. Available on a variety of substrates, including: vinyl, coated paper, transparencies (backlit films), labels and plastic.

Ink Colour
RGB stands for Red, Green and Blue. These colours are used for digital cameras, scanners, computer monitors and TV screens. Files must be converted from RGB to CMYK when printing on a digital press. CMYK stands for Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black and are the ink colours used in the print process. Printing with these four colours is often referred to as full-colour or 4-colour printing.

What is bleed?
If you are wanting the colour to go to the trimmed edge of your printed piece one important custom printing term to know is a bleed. Bleed refers to an extra .125” / 7mm of image that extends beyond the trim area of your printed piece. To accommodate a bleed, we print the bleed larger than the final trim size. Bleeds require more paper and production time.

What is your safe area?
The safe area or inner margin in which to keep all important file elements, and to prevent them from being trimmed off, should be at least .25” / 8mm inside the edge of the final trim size.

Specifying ink colours
4 / 4 = Full colour both sides
4 / 1 = Full colour one side, black the other
4 / 0 = Full colour one side only
1 / 1 = Black one side, black the other
1 / 0 = Black one side only