Print terms, in plain shopkeeper language.
Bleed, trim, CMYK, DPI, prepress, gang run - the words that fly around a print shop, explained simply. No jargon, no lecture. If you have ever nodded along to a term and quietly wondered what it meant, start here.
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The index
Jump to a term
16 terms every print and web-to-print shop runs into, in one place.
A to Z
Every term, defined the way a shopkeeper would.
Web-to-print
- Web-to-print is the whole idea of letting customers find, customise, price and buy print on a website instead of by phone, email or in person. A good web-to-print store shows your products, lets the buyer design or upload artwork, prices the job instantly, takes payment, and hands your team a file that is ready for the press. It is the front-of-shop that turns "send me a quote" into a finished, paid order.
Bleed
- Bleed is the strip of artwork that extends a little past where the paper will actually be cut - usually about 3mm or 1/8 inch on every side. Cutting machines move slightly, so if your background colour or image stops exactly at the edge, you risk a thin white sliver showing. Bleed gives the cutter room to wander without ruining the job. In our design studio the bleed area is marked for you, so customer artwork lands print-ready instead of half a millimetre short.
Trim
- The trim is the line where the printed sheet gets cut down to its finished size. A business card with a trim of 3.5 x 2 inches will be exactly that size in the customer's hand. Anything past the trim is bleed (and gets cut off); anything important - text, logos, faces - should sit well inside it. Pieces cut right on a tight margin look amateurish, which is why our canvas shows trim and a safe area together.
Safe area
- The safe area (or safe zone) is the breathing room inside the trim line where you keep anything you cannot afford to lose - text, logos, phone numbers, key parts of an image. Because cutting is never pixel-perfect, content placed too close to the trim can get clipped. Keeping it inside the safe area means it survives the cut every time. Our design studio draws this line so customers do not have to guess.
CMYK
- CMYK stands for Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Key (black) - the four inks most full-colour print is built from. Screens use RGB (red, green, blue) light, which can show brighter, more vivid colours than ink can reproduce. That is why a design that glows on a monitor can look flatter on paper. Preparing artwork in CMYK means the colours on screen match what comes off the press. When an order is placed in Printmio, the design is exported as a CMYK print-ready file so there are no colour surprises.
RGB
- RGB stands for Red, Green and Blue - the colours of light that screens mix to make every other colour. Phones, laptops and cameras all work in RGB, so most artwork starts life there. The catch is that screens can display colours, especially bright greens and blues, that printing inks simply cannot match. Converting to CMYK before printing keeps the final piece looking like what everyone approved on screen.
DPI / Resolution
- DPI means dots per inch - how finely an image is printed. Print generally wants 300 DPI for crisp results, while screens only need about 72 DPI, so an image that looks fine on a website can come out blurry or pixelated when printed large. A common cause of reprints is a customer uploading a small, low-resolution logo. Catching that before the job runs saves paper, ink and an awkward conversation. Files produced by Printmio are exported at 300 DPI for the press.
Proof
- A proof is the "this is exactly what we are about to print - do you approve?" step. It might be a PDF, an on-screen preview, or a printed sample. Getting written sign-off on a proof protects both sides: if the spelling, colour or layout is wrong after approval, it is clear where the change came from. Printmio includes online proof approval, so customers confirm their order on screen and your team has a record of exactly what was agreed.
Print-ready file
- A print-ready file is artwork that needs no extra fixing before it prints - correct size, bleed in place, 300 DPI images, fonts embedded or outlined, and colours in CMYK. The opposite is the all-too-common file that arrives in the wrong size, low resolution, or with a font your machine does not have, and bounces back to the customer. Printmio turns every approved design into a print-ready PDF automatically, so your team spends less time fixing files.
Prepress
- Prepress is everything that happens between an order arriving and the press starting: checking resolution, fixing bleed, converting colours, embedding fonts, and confirming the layout. It is essential, but it is also where shops quietly lose money - every bounced file is a reprint, a delay, or an hour of free prepress. The more artwork that arrives print-ready, the less of that your shop gives away.
Variable data
- Variable data printing (VDP) is printing many copies of the same piece where some details change on each one - names, addresses, codes, table numbers. Think numbered raffle tickets, personalised mailers, or event badges with each guest's name. Instead of laying out hundreds of files by hand, one template is merged with a list and printed in a single run. It is how shops handle personalised work at volume without it becoming a manual nightmare.
B2B account
- A B2B account is a business customer - a company, school, franchise or reseller - that buys from you regularly, rather than a one-off walk-in. In Printmio a business customer can have their own login, see their agreed pricing, reorder past jobs, and keep their order history in one place. It turns repeat commercial buyers into accounts you can serve quickly, instead of re-quoting the same work every time they come back.
Pricing model
- A pricing model is simply the method you use to work out what a job costs - flat price, percentage markup, quantity breaks, per-area, or your own formula. If those rules live in a spreadsheet or in someone's head, selling online is hard. Printmio ships with a built-in model for each, so your storefront can price almost any product the way you actually sell it and quote web orders instantly at checkout.
Storefront
- A storefront is the customer-facing website where people browse your products, customise them, see a price and check out - on your own domain, looking like your business rather than a marketplace. It is the difference between "email us for a quote" and a shop that takes orders around the clock. Printmio lets you run multiple storefronts, so you can serve different brands, audiences or business customers without standing up separate systems.
Gang run
- A gang run is an industry term for placing several different jobs onto a single large sheet and printing them together, then cutting them apart afterwards. Because the press setup and the sheet are shared across jobs, the cost per piece drops - it is how many trade printers offer low prices on small runs. It is a production-floor cost-saving technique rather than something a customer sees, but it shapes how competitive your pricing can be. Printmio plans gang runs for you as part of its built-in imposition, splitting the sheet cost across the jobs riding on it.
Imposition
- Imposition is the industry term for arranging pages or copies on a printing sheet in the right positions and order so that, once printed, folded and cut, everything ends up in sequence and with the least waste. For a booklet, for example, the pages are not laid out 1-2-3-4 on the sheet - they are positioned so the folded result reads correctly. It is a core prepress skill that affects how much paper a job uses. Printmio ships imposition built in: n-up, booklet and gang-run planning with orientation optimisation, a waste percentage you can see before you print, and the imposed PDF out the other end.
Selling print online, from order to print-ready file.
Extra artwork past the cut line so colour runs to the edge.
The final cut line - the actual finished size of the piece.
The inner zone where important content stays clear of the cut.
The four printing inks - cyan, magenta, yellow, black.
The red-green-blue colour model screens use.
How many dots of ink fit per inch - sharpness on paper.
A preview the customer approves before you print.
Artwork prepared so it can go straight to the press.
The file-checking and prep work before anything prints.
One template, personalised automatically for many recipients.
A business customer with their own login, prices and history.
The rule that decides what a job costs to print.
Your branded online shop where customers order print.
Printing several different jobs together on one sheet to save cost.
Arranging multiple pages or copies on a sheet for efficient printing.
Why the words matter
Most reprints start with a file problem.
Wrong resolution, no bleed, RGB instead of CMYK, a font your machine does not have - these are the small things that turn into chased emails, late jobs and reprints. Every bounced file is a reprint, a delay, or an hour of free prepress.
The cleaner the artwork arrives, the less of that you give away. That is the whole reason to let customers design correctly online - with bleed, trim and safe-area guides on screen - instead of emailing files in and hoping.
FAQ
Common questions about print terms.
The ones shop owners and their customers ask most. If yours is not here, book a demo and ask us directly.
See these terms turn into clean, paid orders.
A branded storefront with a design studio that builds in bleed, trim and safe-area guides and exports a 300 DPI CMYK print-ready file - so the artwork on your floor is right the first time. Book a demo, or request your free 14-day trial.
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