Finch Glossary

Absorbency
The ability of a paper or board to take up and retain liquids such as water or ink.

Actuator
The active element of the printhead in which the pressure wave is 
generated to eject the ink.

AF & PA (American Forest & Paper Association)
The national trade association of the forest, paper and wood products industry. This organization serves to advance public policies to promote a strong and sustainable U.S. forest products industry to markets across the world.

Aniline
Oil-based solvent (quick drying) used in the preparation process of dyes and inks.

Basis Weight
Weight in pounds per 500 sheets of paper (one ream) of different paper grades weighed by their standard sheet size.

Binary Inkjet
Binary printing is enabled by drop-on-demand printheads which can either fire a drop of one particular size or no drop at all.

Bleed
Ink that extends beyond the trim line of a piece of paper that allows for variations that occur during trimming or die-cutting.

Brightness
The percentage of light reflected by a sheet of paper. Paper brightness is measured by a light meter.

Caliper
Paper thickness measured in thousandths of an inch or mils.

Cockle
A rippling effect in paper caused by drying at a lower tension. It can be created as a desired effect or can be an unwanted result of improper drying.

Colorant
A substance used for coloring a material: dye, pigment.

Commodity Papers
A generic term used to classify average quality paper grades (such as bond and offset) produced in high volume on big paper machines.

Continuous inkjet
In continuous inkjet technology, a high-pressure pump directs liquid ink from a reservoir through a gunbody and a microscopic nozzle, creating a continuous stream of ink droplets.

Debarking
A process in which most or all of the bark is removed from the logs before feeding the logs into the chipper, or into the grinder.

Debarking Drum
Large rotating cylinder in which pulpwood logs are tumbled against one another to remove the bark.

Densitometer
A photoelectric instrument used to measure the density of colored ink or print density throughout a print run.

DOD (Drop-on-Demand) Inkjet
Printheads can be precisely controlled to produce ink drops when required to produce high quality, repeatable images in DOD inkjet 
technology.

DPD
The number, or maximum number, of sub drops in a printed drop.

Driers (on a paper machine)
A series of large cylindrical steam-heated rolls that dry the paper web during the papermaking process.

Dye Based Ink
Any ink that acquires its color by the use of aniline pigments or dyes.

End-shooter
In an End-Shooter printhead, at the end of each channel is a small hole through which the ink is ejected.

Fiber
The slender, thread-like cellulose structures that form a sheet of paper.

Fiber orientation
Refers to the alignment of fibers in a paper sheet.

Grade
Classification of papers to differentiate basis of paper furnish content, appearance, or end use.

Grain
Refers to the alignment of fibers in the direction of their flow on the paper machine. Long grain describes fibers running parallel to the longest side of a sheet; short grain running parallel to the short side.

Holdout
The ability of paper or board to resist surface liquid penetration, leaving ink on the surface rather than absorbing it.

Hyrdophilic
Refers to a paper that readily absorbs water.

Inkjet inks
A direct-to-substrate technology consisting primarily of either pigment-based, or dye-based, materials; that are channeled through a printer head.

Inkjet printing
A plate-less printing process that produces an image or text by projecting small ink particles directly onto the paper surface.

Integrated mill
A mill manufacturing complex that produces paper from logs to pulp and pulp to paper manufactured at its site.

Media
The surface which is printed upon (e.g. paper).

Nanotechnology, or molecular manufacturing
Deals with the design and manufacture of extremely small circuits and devices built at the molecular level of matter.

Opacimeter
An instrument that is used to measure paper’s opacity.

Opacity
The ability of a sheet of paper to prevent light from passing through it. The less “show-through,” the more “opaque” the sheet.

Paper
A web of cellulose fibers, bound together by interweaving and by the use of bonding agents.

Picoliter
A picoliter is a trillionth (one millionth of a millionth) of a liter. A common use for picoliter-scale volumes is inkjet printers, which typically use ink droplets measuring between 2 and 25 picoliters. Smaller droplets enable higher resolution images.

Piezoelectricity
The charge which accumulates in certain solid materials, notably crystals, in response to applied mechanical strain.

Piezoelectric
Refers to the property of certain crystalline structures to change shape or twitch upon application of an electrical field. Piezoelectric crystals are used to drive the ejection of ink from the inkjet print head towards the paper.

Pigment inks
Are comprised of tiny, encapsulated particles that sit on top of the paper, instead of being absorbed into a paper ís fibers, which is what happens with dyes. Pigment inks are much more stable than dye-based inks, and can last more than 200 years on some paper types, under ideal (museum-quality lighting and framing) conditions.

Pixel line
The single line of dots ejected from the printhead onto the media when the printhead is fired.

Post-consumer waste
Recovered paper, which has gone through the consumer lifecycle before being recycled.

Printability
Ease and efficiency with which paper can be printed to quality standards with the least amount of wastage.

Pulp
Pulp is a chemically or mechanically produced raw material used in the production paper and paperboard.

Purging
The process of forcing ink out of nozzles, either by vacuum or pressure.

Quality
In inkjet terms, this is a mix between resolution and tutorial range (e.g. The number of shades or tones that go into making up a print).

Ream
A stack of paper containing either 480 or 500 sheets depending on the paper grade.

Recycled fiber
Fiber derived from recovered paper that is processed into a 
useable end product. The amount used in the papermaking process is measured as a percentage of the paper’s weight.

(Drop) Redundancy
This is where a particular area (pixel) can be printed by more than one nozzle. So if a nozzle is blocked, the pixel can be printed by the other nozzle. This may take place on a different pass.

Resolution
The amount of detail that can be resolved out of an image, i.e., the number of discrete drops of ink that are fired onto a controlled size of media (dots per inch, or “dpi”).

Runnability
A paper property necessary for a trouble-free run through a paper machine or printing press.

Smoothness
Smoothness speaks to the surface contour of paper considering the following qualities under testing conditions: roughness, levelness, and compressibility.

Specialty Paper
Coated and uncoated paper produced to meet the unique needs of customers with diverse and specialized usage.

TAPPI (Technical Association of the Pulp and Paper Industry)
A technical association serving members in the pulp, paper, packaging, and converting industries worldwide.

Treated paper
After the foundation of paper is made, a treatment or coating is applied to help with ink absorption at the location that the ink hits the paper. This also prevents ink migration and bleeding, as well as adds florescence to the paper.

Uncoated Paper
Paper which has not been coated with any of the various coating 
substances.

Variable
Variable drop produces high quality, high productivity results.

Vehicle
The liquid part of an ink that gives it flow enabling it to be 
applied to a surface.

Virgin pulp
A fiber used for the first time in the paper making process, derived and unaltered from its original source.

Wood Yard
The area in a pulp and paper mill where logs are stored, 
debarked, and chipped.

* Finch Paper Glossary terms were compiled using resources from Finch Paper, Merriam-Webster Dictionary, PaperIndex.com, and Xaar Online.