Copy Center lexicon
Jan. 6th, 2006 12:25 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
titusnowlThere's not a lot of jargon in the copy industry - or if there is, it's become such second nature to me that I don't even realize it's jargon (my only jobs ever have been clerk at a Nascar memorabilia store which was during high school and doesn't really count, two weeks at the "next window" - the one that gives you your food - at a McDonald's drive-thru, a month at the deli where I cut off my thumb, and going on four years of copying stuff).
Although we have few industry-specific words, we do use common ones in ways that apparently don't make sense right away to the layman, as it always takes a new hire a week or two to understand what seem to us old hands to be simple instructions.
There are three forms of "sidedness." One, two, and one-two. One means that the original papers are only printed on one side, and the copies are to remain that way. Two means that the original papers are printed on both sides, and the copies should be run that way as well. One-two means the originals are only single-sided, but the copies should be double-sided. (Customers call this front-to-back - a legitimate term - or "two on one," which has a different, though somewhat rare, meaning for us.) In theory you could also run things two-one, turning a double-sided original into a single-sided copy, but that's not something we find very often. One and two used to be called "simplex" and "duplex," but those terms haven't been current at any of the shops I've worked in. Our only exposure to them is through the print software, which offers One and Two as options under the main heading "Duplexing."
"Two on one" for us is putting two copies of the original onto one sheet of paper - usually for making invitations or flyers in a smaller, more economical size. If you're willing to use 8.5 by 5.5 flyers, you'll get twice as many for your money as if you insist on using 8.5 by 11. The trade-off is that if you filled the entire piece of paper with 8-point text, it's going to be illegible when it's shrunk down - but that's ok, because I'm sure nobody wanted to read it in that case, anyway.
We use American sizes of paper, of course, since we're in America. Standard paper, "letter," is 8.5 inches wide and 11 inches tall. "Legal" is 8.5 by 14. "Ledger" or "tabloid" (we usually use ledger out loud, but tabloid is the term written on the machines and in print software) is 11 by 17. Technically 8.5 by 5.5 paper is called "statement." If you divide it in half, you get 5.5 by 4.25, which we refer to as "postcard" size, although postcards you buy at the store aren't anywhere near those dimensions (they're closer to 4 by 6, usuallly). You can either call the paper by its name or by its size, and it's ok to round - we usually just say 8 by 11, 8 by 5 and 4 by 5.
Paper weight refers to the thickness of the paper, and although it does have a concrete physical origin at the paper mill, in general use it's only really good as a comparative number. Standard paper ranges from 20 to 32 pounds; 20 pounds is very flimsy and usually has bad bleed-through if you print it double-sided, and 32 is very stiff and is great for resumes and important papers. Our standard stuff is 24 pounds. Cover stock is 65 pounds, card stock is 110, and once they're out of their packages I have no idea which one is which. NCR, or carbonless, is the pressure-sensitive paper that forms are made of, when you write on the white page and it transfers through to the pink, canary and goldenrod pages. It comes in two, three and four-part, most commonly, although at Kinko's we could order in five and six-part if required. It's called "carbonless" because it doesn't have a sheet of carbon paper in there with it; I don't know the specifics of how it works, but since it only works if you print on the proper side, I think the back of it must be impregnated with carbon.
Paper comes in white, pastel and brights; the pastels are cream, canary, goldenrod, pink, blue, green and grey, and the brights have stupid colors assigned by the manufacturer like "terra green" and "pulsar pink." There are also various "resume" papers that come in heathered tones and finishes like laid and linen.
Other terms and phrases which make perfect sense to me but perplex customers and trainees:
- You can run a copy either through the feeder or off the glass, for which the technical term is "platen."
- You can make your sets collated or uncollated, and some of the machines have finishers that will staple and drill them, too.
- If there's a jam, you should never pull the tray, or the paper will get wedged behind it and you'll need to place a service call. First check the feed door, then open her up, drop the drawer and check the drum and fuser. If the paper is on the bad side of the fuser, don't touch the toner, or your hand will be stained. If it's on the good side of the fuser, you're fine; it might even be salvageable enough to hand to the customer, if it's not mangled. If it's actually in the fuser, rotate it through, don't just yank or you'll break something - and don't touch the fuser, for god's sake; it has warnings on it in six different languages.
We're not very technical at all, at least in daily use. Sometimes we'll have to start spouting jargon when we're trying to fix a machine, but our daily lives don't use anything fancier than what I've posted here.
Although we have few industry-specific words, we do use common ones in ways that apparently don't make sense right away to the layman, as it always takes a new hire a week or two to understand what seem to us old hands to be simple instructions.
There are three forms of "sidedness." One, two, and one-two. One means that the original papers are only printed on one side, and the copies are to remain that way. Two means that the original papers are printed on both sides, and the copies should be run that way as well. One-two means the originals are only single-sided, but the copies should be double-sided. (Customers call this front-to-back - a legitimate term - or "two on one," which has a different, though somewhat rare, meaning for us.) In theory you could also run things two-one, turning a double-sided original into a single-sided copy, but that's not something we find very often. One and two used to be called "simplex" and "duplex," but those terms haven't been current at any of the shops I've worked in. Our only exposure to them is through the print software, which offers One and Two as options under the main heading "Duplexing."
"Two on one" for us is putting two copies of the original onto one sheet of paper - usually for making invitations or flyers in a smaller, more economical size. If you're willing to use 8.5 by 5.5 flyers, you'll get twice as many for your money as if you insist on using 8.5 by 11. The trade-off is that if you filled the entire piece of paper with 8-point text, it's going to be illegible when it's shrunk down - but that's ok, because I'm sure nobody wanted to read it in that case, anyway.
We use American sizes of paper, of course, since we're in America. Standard paper, "letter," is 8.5 inches wide and 11 inches tall. "Legal" is 8.5 by 14. "Ledger" or "tabloid" (we usually use ledger out loud, but tabloid is the term written on the machines and in print software) is 11 by 17. Technically 8.5 by 5.5 paper is called "statement." If you divide it in half, you get 5.5 by 4.25, which we refer to as "postcard" size, although postcards you buy at the store aren't anywhere near those dimensions (they're closer to 4 by 6, usuallly). You can either call the paper by its name or by its size, and it's ok to round - we usually just say 8 by 11, 8 by 5 and 4 by 5.
Paper weight refers to the thickness of the paper, and although it does have a concrete physical origin at the paper mill, in general use it's only really good as a comparative number. Standard paper ranges from 20 to 32 pounds; 20 pounds is very flimsy and usually has bad bleed-through if you print it double-sided, and 32 is very stiff and is great for resumes and important papers. Our standard stuff is 24 pounds. Cover stock is 65 pounds, card stock is 110, and once they're out of their packages I have no idea which one is which. NCR, or carbonless, is the pressure-sensitive paper that forms are made of, when you write on the white page and it transfers through to the pink, canary and goldenrod pages. It comes in two, three and four-part, most commonly, although at Kinko's we could order in five and six-part if required. It's called "carbonless" because it doesn't have a sheet of carbon paper in there with it; I don't know the specifics of how it works, but since it only works if you print on the proper side, I think the back of it must be impregnated with carbon.
Paper comes in white, pastel and brights; the pastels are cream, canary, goldenrod, pink, blue, green and grey, and the brights have stupid colors assigned by the manufacturer like "terra green" and "pulsar pink." There are also various "resume" papers that come in heathered tones and finishes like laid and linen.
Other terms and phrases which make perfect sense to me but perplex customers and trainees:
- You can run a copy either through the feeder or off the glass, for which the technical term is "platen."
- You can make your sets collated or uncollated, and some of the machines have finishers that will staple and drill them, too.
- If there's a jam, you should never pull the tray, or the paper will get wedged behind it and you'll need to place a service call. First check the feed door, then open her up, drop the drawer and check the drum and fuser. If the paper is on the bad side of the fuser, don't touch the toner, or your hand will be stained. If it's on the good side of the fuser, you're fine; it might even be salvageable enough to hand to the customer, if it's not mangled. If it's actually in the fuser, rotate it through, don't just yank or you'll break something - and don't touch the fuser, for god's sake; it has warnings on it in six different languages.
We're not very technical at all, at least in daily use. Sometimes we'll have to start spouting jargon when we're trying to fix a machine, but our daily lives don't use anything fancier than what I've posted here.
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no subject
Date: 2006-01-06 06:34 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-06 06:40 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-06 03:51 pm (UTC)I find it interesting that "platen" can be just the sheet of glass on a copier.
no subject
Date: 2006-01-06 06:18 pm (UTC)Interesting reading for paper geeks:
http://www.adobe.com/products/adobemag/archive/pdfs/99wicocs.pdf
http://www.adobe.com/products/adobemag/archive/pdfs/9609cocs.pdf
Paper sizing is yet another area where the U.S. doesn't follow international standards that, to my mind, makes more sense -- though the numbers seem nonsensical at first (A4 is 210 x 297 mm), the aspect ratio is what matters: sqrt(2):1. This means that the width/height proportion stays the same no matter how many times you double or half the original document.
http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/iso-paper.html
no subject
Date: 2006-01-06 07:24 pm (UTC)The biphenyl oil used to be polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, but that should be over and done with since the ban on PCB manufacture. Trace concentrations of toluene diisocyanate are also believed to be contained in the microcapsules.