Cristina K.
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For interesting info regarding legal proofreading, check out our links page!
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Legal Proofreading Class—Printer's Terminology & Measurements
Legal proofreaders often find themselves working on financial documents at financial printers. Because financial printers do not format their documents the way legal wordprocessing centers do (using single space, double space, tab indents, etc., it is helpful to be familiar with printing terminology so that you will know what people are talking about in a financial printing environment. Below are some terms that you may not know, but that you will likely come across "at the printer's." In our legal proofreading class you will cover these and the other printing terms you need to know.
| Term | Definition |
| point | A point is a unit of measurement. There are 72 points in an inch. Points are used to measure typeface size (the size of letters), the thickness of rules, and leading (the space between lines of text, measured from baseline to baseline. |
| pica | A pica is a unit of measurement used to measure rules, gutters, column width and copy area. There are 12 points in a pica. Six picas equal one inch. |
| copy area | Copy area refers to that part of the page (sheet of paper) that contains the text (including the folio, or page number). The most common copy area is 36 picas wide (margin to margin) and 56 picas deep. |
| gutter | The gutter is the space between columns. Gutters are measured in picas. |
| hanging text | Hanging text refers to characters, such as parenthesis, footnote references (numbers, asterisks, daggers, etc.) that "hang" in the column. Hanging characters in the gutters between tabular data allows the numbers in the columns to align properly. |
| typeface | Typeface refers to a family of alphabetical and numerical characters, such as Times New Roman, Arial, and Helvetica. Typeface is not the same as font. |
| font | Font refers to how a typeface is set— italic, bold, and bold italic are the most common. Others, such as extra bold or light type, condensed type, and expanded type also exist. |
| folio | A folio is the page number that is printed on the page. |
| en dash | An en dash is slightly longer than a hyphen and measures (approximately) the width of a capital N of the typeface and size being used. An en dash is generally used to separate ranges of numbers: 35 – 36 |
| em dash | An em dash is slightly longer than an en dash and measures (approximately) the width of a capital M of the typeface and size being used. Em dashes are used in numerical columns, where no data is present, in headers to indicate subsections, and in text. Em dashes are also a unit of measure— in financial printing indents are measured using "em spaces" and not "tabs." |
| crop marks | crop marks are small marks at the top and bottom margins of the page that show where the paper will be cut, or cropped, when the document is ready to be turned into printed book. |
| break rule | A breakrule is short, horizontal rule used mostly to separate elements of text on front covers of financial documents and to separate footnotes from text or table data. |
View Table Terminology on the links page for a some more info.
Greg B.
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For more information regarding our legal proofreading class contact us at
917-684-3038 or via email at info@proofreadertraining.com—be sure to put "legal proofreading class" in the reference line.