Glossary of Terms

A

Abridge: To shorten by omissions while retaining the basic contents; to reduce or lessen in duration, scope, authority, etc.; diminish; curtail (Webster's Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language, Thunder Bay Press, San Diego, CA 2001, p. 6)

Active Audience: When the writer expands the story to include multiple possibilities, the reader assumes a more active role. Contemporary stories, in high and low culture, keep reminding us of the storyteller an inviting us to second-guess the choices he or she has made. This can be unsettling to the reader, but it can also be experienced as an invitation to join in the creative process, e.g., Italo Calvino's If on a Winter's Night a Traveler (1979) (Murray, Janet Horowitz. Hamlet on the Holodeck: The Future of Narrative in Cyberspace. New York: Free Press, 1997. p 38).

Alley: The space between columns within a page. Not to be confused with the gutter, which is the combination of the inside margins of two facing pages.

Alliteration: The commencement of two or more stressed syllables of a word group either with the same consonant sound or sound group (consonantal alliteration), as in from stem to stern, or with a vowel sound that may differ from syllable to syllable (vocalic alliterations), as in each to all.

Allusion: A passing or casual reference; an incidental mention of something, either directly or by implication. A metaphor; parable.

Analyze 1. to separate (a material or abstract entity) into constituent parts or elements; determine the elements or essential features of (opposed to synthesize): to analyze an argument. 2. to examine critically, so as to bring out the essential elements or give the essence of: to analyze a poem. 3. to examine carefully and in detail so as to identify causes, key factors, possible results, etc. (Webster's Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language, Thunder Bay Press, San Diego, CA 2001, p 74)

Anonymous FTP: Most public FTP servers allow anyone to log into the system as user anonymous. By convention, the user's email address is used as the password.

Apparition: A supernatural appearance of a person or thing, esp. a ghost; a specter or phantom; wraith (Webster's Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language, Thunder Bay Press, San Diego, CA 2001, p. 100)

Apprehensive: Uneasy or fearful about something that might happen (Webster's Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language, Thunder Bay Press, San Diego, CA 2001, p. 103)

Ascender: In typography, the parts of lowercase letters that rise above the x-height of the font, e.g. b, d, f, h, k, I, and t.

Aside: A part of an actor's lines supposedly not heard by others on the stage and intended only for the audience. Words spoken so as not to be heard by others present. A temporary departure from a main theme or topic, esp. a parenthetical comment or remark; short digression. (Webster's Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language, Thunder Bay Press, San Diego, CA 2001, p. 122)

Assonance: Resemblance of sounds. Also called vowel rhyme - rhyme in which the same vowel sounds are used with different consonants in the stressed syllables of the rhyming words, as in penitent and reticence.

Asymmetric: Not identical on both sides of a central line; unsymmetrical; lacking symmetry (Webster's Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language, Thunder Bay Press, San Diego, CA 2001, p. 129)

B

Balance: 1. a state of equilibrium or equipoise; equal distribution of weight, amount, etc. 2. something used to produce equilibrium; counterpoise. 3. mental steadiness or emotional stability; habit of calm behavior, judgment, etc. 4. a state of bodily equilibrium: He lost his balance and fell down the stairs. 5. an instrument for determining weight, typically by the equilibrium of a bar with a fulcrum at the center, from each end of which is suspended a scale or pan, one holding an object of known weight, and the other holding he object to be weighed. 13. Fine Arts. composition or placement of elements of design, as figures, forms, or colors, in such a manner as to produce an aesthetically pleasing or harmoniously integrated whole. (Webster's Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language, Thunder Bay Press, San Diego, CA 2001, p. 157)

• Approximate Symmetry: Based on symmetry but the two halves are not exactly the same. Slight variations will probably not change the balance.
  • Near symmetry is more versatile than pure symmetry.
• Asymmetry: 1. not identical on both sides of a central line; unsymmetrical; lacking symmetry: Most faces are asymmetric. (Webster's Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language, Thunder Bay Press, San Diego, CA 2001, p. 129)
  • When the left and right sides of the design are unequal it is said to have asymmetrical balance.
• Radial Symmetry: Lines and shapes are mirrored both vertically and horizontally, with the center of the composition acting as a focal point.
• Symmetry: 1. the correspondence in size, form, and arrangement of parts on opposite sides of a plane, line, or point; regularity of form or arrangement in terms of like, reciprocal, or corresponding parts. 2. the proper or due proportion of the parts of a body or whole to one another with regard to size and form; excellence of proportion. (Webster's Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language, Thunder Bay Press, San Diego, CA 2001, p. 1926)
  • Symmetry can occur in any orientation as long as the image is the same on either side of the central axis.
  • Symmetrical balance is also called formal balance because a form (formula) is used -- a mirror image about a vertical axis. The results look formal, organized and orderly.
  • Be aware that in evaluating works of art, the symmetry does NOT have to illustrate an exact mirror image

Banner: The title of a periodical, which appears on the cover of the magazine and on the first page of the newsletter. It contains the name of the publication and serial information -- date, volume, number.

Baseline: In typography, the imaginary horizontal line upon which the main body of the letters sits. Rounded letters actually dip slightly below the baseline to give optical balance.

Biography: A written account of another person's life.

Bitmapped (mode): The Paint graphics mode describes an image made of pixels where the pixel is either on (black) or off (white).

Black (font): A font that has more weight than the bold version of a typeface.

Bleed: An element that extends to the edge of the page. To print a bleed, the publication is printed on oversized paper which is trimmed.

Block quote: A long quotation -- four or more lines -- within body text, that is set apart in order to clearly distinguish the author's words from the words that the author is quoting.

Body type: Roman -- normal, plain, or book -- type used for long passages of text, such a stories in a newsletter, magazine, or chapters in a book. Generally sized from 9 point to 14 point. See Display type.

Brainstorm: A sudden impulse, idea, etc.: brainstorming - a conference technique of solving specific problems, amassing information, stimulating creative thinking, developing new ideas, etc., by unrestrained and spontaneous participation in discussion (Webster's Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language, Thunder Bay Press, San Diego, CA 2001, p. 253)

Byline: In newsletter/magazine layout, a credit line for the author of an article.

C

Callout: An explanatory label for an illustration, often drawn with a leader line pointing to a part of the illustration.

Camera-ready copy: Final publication material that is ready to be made into a negative for a printing plate. May be a computer file or actual print and images on a board.

Cap height: In typography, the distance from the baseline to the top of the capital letters.

Caption: An identification (title) for an illustration, usually a brief phrase. The caption should also support the other content.

CGI: Common Gateway Interface. A computer program or script residing on a web server, following the standards of HTTP, that serves as an interface between the server and the web browser.

Character: (In typography) Any letter, figure, punctuation, symbol or space

Characterization: Portrayal; description; to mark or distinguish as a characteristic; to describe the character or individual quality of: He characterize her in a few well-chosen words (Webster's Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language, Thunder Bay Press, San Diego, CA 2001, p. 347)

Client: User-end software or computer designed to access and interact with a server.

Clip art: Ready-made artwork sold or distributed for clipping and pasting into publications. Available in hardcopy books, and in electronic form, as files on disk.

Color: [Element of Art and Design]

Color schemes:

• Analogous: Colors that contain a common hue and are found next to each other on the color wheel, e.g., violet, red-violet, and red create a sense of harmony. Remember adjoining colors on the wheel are similar and tend to blend together. They are effective at showing depth.
• Complementary: Two colors opposite one another on the color wheel, e.g., blue and orange, yellow and purple, red and green. When a pair of high intensity complements are placed side by side, they seem to vibrate and draw attention to the element Not all color schemes, based on complementary colors are loud and demanding -- if the hues are of low-intensity the contrast is not too harsh. Intensity can only be altered by mixing a color with its complement, which has the effect of visually neutralizing the color. Changing the values of the hues, adding black or white, will soften the effect.
• Cool colors: Suggest coolness and seem to recede from a viewer and fall back, e.g., blue and green are the colors of water and trees).
• Double complementary: Two adjacent hues and their opposites. it uses four colors arranged into two complementary color pairs. This scheme is hard to harmonize; if all four colors are used in equal amounts, the scheme may look unbalanced, so you should choose a color to be dominant or subdue the colors.
• Intensity: Brightness or dullness of a color. A pure hue is a high-intensity color. A dulled hue, a color mixed with its complement is called a low-intensity color.
• Intermediate: Colors created by mixing a primary and a secondary: Red-orange, yellow-orange, yellow-green, blue-green, blue-purple, and red-purple.
• Monochromatic: One color. A monochromatic color scheme uses only one hue (color) and all values (shades or tints) of it for a unifying and harmonious effect.
• Neutral colors: Contain equal parts of each of the three primary colors - black, white, gray, and sometimes brown are considered "neutral". When neutrals are added to a color only the value changes, however; if you try to make a color darker by adding a darker color to it the color (hue) changes.
  Consider that black and white are thought of as neutrals because they do not change color.
• Primary: Red, yellow, and blue
• Secondary: By mixing two primary colors, you create a secondary color: Red + yellow =orange; yellow + blue = green; and blue + red = purple (violet)
• Split complements: The combination of one hue plus the hues on each side of its complement. This is easier to work with than a straight complementary scheme. It offers more variety, e.g., red-orange, blue, and green.
• Triad: A color triad is composed of three colors spaced an equal distance apart on the color wheel. The contrast between triad colors is not as strong as that between complements.
• Warm colors: Suggest warmth and seem to move toward the viewer and appear closer, e.g., red and orange are the colors of fire. Remember that warm colors appear larger than cool colors.

Color separation: The process of creating separate negatives and plates for each color of ink (cyan, magenta, yellow, and black) that will be used in the publication. See Process color separation, Spot color separation.

Color spacing: The addition of spaces to congested areas of words or word spacing to achieve a more pleasing appearance after the line has been set normally.

Column gutter: The space between columns of type.

Compare and Contrast: Compare - to examine (two or more objects, ideas, people, etc.) in order to note similarities and differences; to compare two pieces of literary work (Webster's Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language, Thunder Bay Press, San Diego, CA 2001, p. 416): Contrast - to compare in order to show unlikeness or differences; note the opposite natures, purposes, etc., of: Contrast the political rights of Romans and Greeks (Webster's Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language, Thunder Bay Press, San Diego, CA 2001, p. 442)

Comprehensive layout (comp): A blueprint of the publication, showing exactly how the type will be set and positioned, and the treatment, sizing, and placement of illustrations on the page.

Condensed font: A font in which the set-widths of the characters is narrower than in the standard typeface. (Note: not the inter-character space -- that is accomplished through tracking).

Continuous tone: Artwork that contains gradations of gray, as opposed to black-and-white line art. Photographs and some drawings, like charcoal or watercolor, require treatment as continuous-tone art. See Line Art.

Copy: Generally refers to text -- typewritten pages, word-processing files, typeset galleys or pages -- although sometimes refers to all source materials (text and graphics) used in a publication.

Copyfitting: The fitting of a variable amount of copy within a specific and fixed amount of space.

Counter: In typography, an enclosed area within a letter, in uppercase, lowercase, and numeric letter forms.

Crop marks: On a mechanical, horizontal and vertical lines that indicate the edge of the printed piece.

Cropping: For artwork, cutting out the extraneous parts of an image, usually a photograph.

Cutlines: Explanatory text, usually full sentences, that provides information about illustrations. Cutlines are sometimes called captions or legends; not to be confused with title-captions, which are headings for the illustration, or key-legends, which are part of the artwork.

Cyberspace: An environment with its own geography in which we experience a change of documents on our screen as a visit to a distant site on a worldwide web (Murray, p 80).

D

Daemon: Server software that is running in the background on a computer and is ready to accept incoming connections.

Default Gateway: The router assigned by the terminal server.

Descender: In typography, the part of the letter form that dips below the baseline; usually refers to lowercase letters and some punctuation, but some typefaces have uppercase letters with descenders.

Dingbat typeface: A typeface made up of non alphabetic marker characters, such as arrows, asterisks, encircled numbers.

Discretionary hyphen: A hyphen that will occur only if the word appears at the end of a line, not if the word appears in the middle of a line.

Display type: Large and/or decorative type used for headlines and as graphic elements in display pieces. Common sizes are 14, 18, 24, 30, 36, 48, 60, and 72 point.

Dither: For digital halftones, the creation of a flat bitmap by simply turning dots off or on. All dots are the same size there are simply more of them in dark areas and fewer of them in light areas -- as opposed to deep bitmaps used in grayscale images. See Gray-scale images, Halftone.

Domain: The name for a network of computers. For example, znet.com is the domain name for any number of machines, or hosts, within zNET's network. Any machine attached to that network, including all users' machines with a dialup connection, are hosts within the znet.com domain. Furthermore, znet.com is within the .com domain.

DNS: Domain Name Service. A DNS database cross-references a domain name, such as znet.com, and its associated hosts, with their IP addresses. A host's IP address, not necessarily the host and domain name, is needed to connect to a remote server.

DPI (dots per inch): The unit of measurement used to describe the resolution of printed output. The most common desktop laser printers output a 300 dpi. Medium-resolution printers output at 600 dpi. Image setters output at 1270-2540 dpi.

Draft: A first or preliminary form of any writing or design, subject to revision, copying, etc. (Webster's Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language, Thunder Bay Press, San Diego, CA 2001, p. 592) See Rough.

Duotone: A halftone image printed with two colors, one dark and the other light. The same photograph is halftoned twice, using the same screen at two different angles; combining the two improves the detail and contrast.

E

Editing: Going over a written piece to correct mechanical errors (spelling, grammar, punctuation, style); could also be called proofreading and is not to be confused with revision.

Egyptian type: Originally, from 1815 on, bold face with heavy slabs or square serifs.

Em space: A space as wide as the point size of the types. This measurement is relative; in 12-point type an em space is 12 points wide, but in 24-point type an em space is 24 points wide.

En space: A space half as wide as the type is high (half an em space.

Enunciation: Pronouncing words clearly and distinctly when speaking aloud

Evaluate: 1. to determine or set the value of amount of; appraise: to evaluate property. 2. to judge or determine the significance, worth, or quality of; assess; to evaluate the results of an experiment (Webster's Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language, Thunder Bay Press, San Diego, CA 2001, p. 670)

Expanded (font): A font in which the set widths of the characters are wider than in the standard typeface. (Note: not the inter-character space -- that is accomplished through letterspacing -- but the characters themselves).

Extended type: Typefaces that are wide horizontally -- Hellenic, Latin Wide, Egyptian Expanded, Microgramma Extended, etc.

F

Facing pages: In a double-sided document, the two pages that appear as a spread when the publication is opened.
See Recto, Spread, Verso.

Feather: To insert small amounts of additional leading between lines, paragraphs, and before and after headings in order to equalize the baselines of columns on a page.

Figurative language: Painting pictures with words; may include any number of techniques, such as: simile, metaphor, personification, hyperbole, etc.

Folio: A page number, often set with running headers or footers.

Font: A set of characters in a specific typeface, at a specific point size, and in a specific style. "12-point Times Bold" is a font -- the typeface Times, at 12-point size, in the bold style. Hence "12-point Times Italic" and "10-point Times Bold" are separate fonts.

Foreshadowing: To show or indicate beforehand; prefigure (Webster's Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language, Thunder Bay Press, San Diego, CA 2001, p. 750)

Form: [Element of Art and Design] A three-dimensional volume or the illusion of three dimensions; related to shape (which is 2-D).

Free write: Writing without regard for mechanics or topic, but with practice of the process (physical and mental) of getting words on paper; usually for a limited time; could be used as a daily warm-up or "vent". (see exercise)

G

Galleys: In traditional publishing, the type set in long columns, not laid out on a page. In desktop publishing, galleys can be printed out using a page-assembly program, for proofreading and copyfitting purposes.

Good Story: Provides the interactor something safely outside ourselves (because it is made up by someone else) upon which we can project our feelings. Stories evoke our deepest fears and desires because they inhabit this magical borderland. The power of what Winnicott (Playing and Reality. New York: Routledge, 1971) called "transitional" experiences comes from the fact that "the real thing is the thing that isn't there." In order to sustain such powerful immersive trances, then, we have to do something inherently paradoxical: we have to keep the virtual world "real" by keeping it "not there." We have to keep it balanced squarely on the enchanted threshold without letting it collapse onto either side (Murray, p 100).

Greeked text: In page-assembly programs, text that appears as gray bars approximating the lines of type rather than actual characters. This speeds up the amount of time it takes to draw images on the screen.

Grid: A system of non-printing lines that divides a page into evenly sized columns, margins and spaces. Grids organize different content in relation to space it will occupy. Used well, grids can provide continuity, unity and flow among pages or projects of similar content.

Gray-scale image: A "deep" bitmap that records with each dot its gray-scale level. The impression of greenness is a function of the size of the dot; a group of large dots looks dark and a group of small dots looks light.

Gutter: In double-sided documents, the combination of the inside margins of facing pages; the gutter should be wide enough to accommodate binding.

H

Halftone: In traditional publishing, a continuous-tone image photographed through a screen in order to create small dots of varying sizes that can be reproduced on a printing press. Digital halftones are produced by sampling a continuous-tone image and assigning different numbers of dots, which simulate different sized dots, for the same effect. See Dither, Gray-scale images, TIFF.

Halftone screen: In traditional publishing, the screen through which a continuous-tone image is photographed, measured in lines per inch. Although digital halftones are not actually photographed through a screen, the term is still used to describe the size of the dots; the larger the dots (fewer lines per inch), the more grainy the image. Special screens can be used for special effects. See Mezzotint, Solarization.

Hang indent alignment: Type set so that the first line is flush left and subsequent lines are indented.

Harbinger: A person who goes ahead and makes known the approach of another; herald; anything that foreshadows a future event; omen; sign; a person sent in advance of troops, a royal train, etc., to provide or secure lodgings and other accommodations (Webster's Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language, Thunder Bay Press, San Diego, CA 2001, p. 870)

Hard hyphen: A non breaking hyphen, used when the two parts of the hyphenated word should not be separated. As opposed to a soft (or normal) hyphen, on which the word-wrapping function of a program will break a line.

Hard return: A return created by the Return or Enter key, as opposed to a word-wrap, or soft return, which will adjust according to the character count and column width.

Head or Headline: A line or lines of copy set in a larger face than the body copy. Usually intended to be the title of piece. As a rule of thumb headlines should be approximately five to eight words in length, although this is not a hard and fast rule. The headline should also capture the reader's attention and create interest, yet be relevant to the content that follows. Avoid using misleading or confusing statements or phrases.

Holonovel: Reference to Star Trek Holodeck stories. A period piece and a work of genre fiction in which the elaborate set design and recognizable story conventions (an arrival in the rain, ghostly noises at the window, a forbidden attic) are playfully savored, as if put there by a very thorough and well-read programmer. Holonovels provide customized entertainment for a variety of tastes (Murray, p 15)

Host: The specific name of a machine residing within a domain. For example, www is the name of a machine inside the znet.com domain, its fully qualified host name being www.znet.com. Please note that www does not necessarily specify a protocol. By convention, web servers are given the name www but any legal domain name will do. Furthermore, a server running web services may be running any number of other daemons, such as FTP and SMTP.

HTML: Hyper Text Markup Language. A suite of tags and a specialized syntax used for formatting a document and creating links to other documents for use on a HTTP server. HTML files usually have the extension .htm or .html. This document, for instance, was created using HTML.

HTTP: Hyper Text Transfer Protocol. The basic protocol for the World Wide Web allowing for systems, documents and files to be linked together via URLs and other instructions given in an HTML document.

Hyperbole: Obvious and intentional exaggeration; an extravagant statement of figure of speech not intended to be taken literally, as "to wait an eternity." (Webster's Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language, Thunder Bay Press, San Diego, CA 2001, p. 940)

Hypertext: A set of documents of any kind (images, text, charts, tables, video clips) connected to one another by links. Stories written in hypertext can be divided into scrolling "pages" (as they are on the World Wide Web) or screen-size "cards" (as they are in a Hypercard stack), but they are best thought of as segmented into generic chunks of information called "lexias" (or reading units) (Murray, p 55).

Hyphenation zone: For ragged-right text, an arbitrary zone about 1/5 to 1/10 of the length of the line; if a long word is not hyphenated and leaves a gap within that zone, discretionary hyphens are used to fill the line.
See Discretionary hyphen.

Hypothesize: 1. to form a hypothesis. 2. to assume by hypothesis - hypothesis - 1. a proposition, or set of propositions, set forth as an explanation for the occurrence of some specified group of phenomena, either asserted merely as a provisional conjecture to guide investigating (working hypothesis) or accepted as highly probable in the light of established facts. 2. a proposition assumed as a premise in an argument. 3. the antecedent of a conditional proposition. 4. a mere assumption or guess (Webster's Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language, Thunder Bay Press, San Diego, CA 2001, p. 944).

I, J

Image area: The area on a page within which copy is positioned; determined by the margins.

IMAP: Internet Message Access Protocol. Allows an email client to access and manipulate a remote email file without downloading it to the local system.

Immersion: A metaphorical term derived from the physical experience of being submerged in water. We seek the same feeling from a psychologically immersive experience that we do from a plunge in the ocean or swimming pool: the sensation of being surrounded by a completely other reality, as different as water is from air, that takes over all of our attention, our whole perceptual apparatus (Murray, p 98).

Incunabula: Books printed before 1501; the word is derived from the Latin for swaddling clothes and is used to indicate that these books are the work of a technology still in its infancy (Murray, p 28).

Interact: To act one upon another. interaction - reciprocal action, effect, or influence (Webster's Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language, Thunder Bay Press, San Diego, CA 2001, p. 992).

interNIC: Internet Network Information Center. Among other things, the InterNIC is the central registry of all U.S. domain names, Domain Name Servers and IP addresses. A domain name lookup for a domain, such as znet.com, will return the names and addresses of the Domain Name Servers handling name services for the hosts in that domain.

Internet: A vast network of networks, subnets, and computers using the TCP/IP suite of protocols. Internet is not a generic name for all internets (interconnected networks), as others may be based on other protocols. The word Internet, when referring to the world-wide TCP/IP-based network, is a proper noun and should be capitalized.

Intelligent Agents: Computer-based characters with complex inner lives who can sense their environment, experience appetites and mood changes, weight conflicting desires, and choose among different strategies to reach a goal, e.g., Star Trek holodeck characters (Murray, p 61).

Interactive: Procedural environments (the computer's ability to execute a series of rules) that induce the behavior of the interactor (person participating). The computer is responsive to the input of the interactor (reacts to prompts that the interactor provides based on a given set of rules) (Murray, pp. 71-74).

Interactor: Person participating, playing, or reading the story, game, or experience.

Introduction: refers to material given at the front of a book or at the beginning of an article to explain or introduce it to the reader. It is always by the author. It may be extensive and is usually printed as part of the text, but may visually separate by using a different typeface, typestyle (italics, bold, etc.), or leading. See Lead-in

IP: Internet Protocol. See TCP/IP.

IP Address: A numerical address specified in four parts, separated by dots (periods) and each part having a number in the range of 0 to 255, the same range as for a byte. Each IP address, then, is four bytes long. Every machine on the Internet must have an IP address. An example is sj.znet.com's IP address of 207.167.80.19. A machine, however, does not have to have a host or domain name.

ISP: Internet Service Provider. A company providing complete Internet access to the public, most often through modem connections. Virtually every Internet protocol and service is available in an open environment. This differs from Commercial Online Services, such as America Online, CompuServe and Prodigy, in that those services provide access to a closed network of computers running its own proprietary software. However, those companies are now providing some Internet access, although content is sometimes restricted.

Italic: Any slanted or leaning letter designed to complement or be compatible with a companion roman typeface.
See Oblique.

Justified alignment: See Right-justified alignment.

K

Kern: To squeeze together characters, for a better fit of strokes and white space. In display type, characters almost need to be kerned because the white space between characters at large sizes is more noticeable.

Kicker: A brief phrase or sentence lead-in to a story or chapter; usually set smaller than the headline or chapter title, but larger than text type.

Knockout: In printing, when one color is to be printed immediately adjacent to another color; actually they are printed with a slight overlap. See Lap register.

L

Landscape (orientation): A page or layout that is wider than it is tall.

Lap register: Used with knockouts, images of different colors are slightly overlapped, to avoid the appearance of a white line between the two inks.

Leader: A line of dots or dashes to lead the eye across the page to separated copy.

Leading: (pronounced "led-ding") The space between lines of type, traditionally measured baseline-to-baseline, in points. Text type is generally set with one or two points of leading; for example, 10-point type with 2 points of leading. This is described as 10/12, read ten on twelve.

Lead-in: See Introduction

Letterforms: In typography, the shapes of the characters.

Lexias: Segmented into generic chunks of information (or reading units). Screen-based pages and cards occupy a virtual space in which they can be preceded by, followed by, and placed next to an infinite number of other lexias. Lexias are often connected to one another with "hyperlinks" (or "hotwords"), that is, words that are displayed in color to alert the reader/viewer that they lead someplace else. e.g., in a hypertext book, displaying the word lexias in the third sentence of this paragraph in color as a hot link instead of placing a superscript number next to it to indicate an endnote. Mouse-clicking on the word would bring up a new screen displaying the information on who invented the term and who applied it to electronic text, information that is now hidden at the back of the book. (Murray, p 55). See Hypertext.

Lexicon: 1. a wordbook or dictionary, esp. of Greek, Latin, or Hebrew. 2. the vocabulary of a particular language, field, social class, person, etc. 3. inventory or record: unparalleled in the lexicon of human relations (Webster's Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language, Thunder Bay Press, San Diego, CA 2001, p. 1107)

Ligature: In typography, characters that are bound to each other, such as "oe" and "ae." In professional typefaces, the lowercase "f" is also often set as a ligature in combination with other characters such as "fi" and "fl."

Light (font): A font that is lighter than the roman (normal, plain, or book) version of the typeface.

Line: [Element of Art and Design] An identifiable path of a point moving in space. It can vary in width, direction, and length.

Line art: Black-and-white artwork with no gray areas. Pen-and-ink drawings are line art, and most graphic images produced with desktop publishing graphics programs can be treated as line art. For printing purposes, positive halftones can be handled as line art.

Live-action role-playing (LARP): Games in which they (players) assume the roles of characters in the original stories to make up new characters within the same fictional universe, e.g. Dungeons and Dragons (1970s), also see Fine, Gary Alan. Shared Fantasy: Role-Playing Games as Social Worlds. Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1983 (Murray, p 42).

Logotype: A symbol, mark, or identifying name.

M

Majuscule: A capital letter.

Miniscule: A lowercase letter.

Masthead: The credit box, headed by the publication name, that lists sponsors, editors, writers, designers, illustrators, photographers, and others, along with the publication office address, subscription and advertising information, etc.

Measure: (noun) In typography, the length of a line, even if the line is not filled with characters (such as a centered or partial line), designated in picas. When the text is set in columns, the line length is called column measure.

Memoir: An autobiographical reflection (see Memoir Annotation for brief reviews of memoirs written on a wide variety of people).

Merged Storyline: A concept made possible through the unique medium of the Internet. Like other electronic media such as interactive storytelling and others, Merged Storylines allow the reader to meet characters introduced midway through a novel, and if they so choose, take a few moments to go back and learn more about them. From motivations and character traits, to events that framed and formed their attitudes and actions in the original storyline, the Merged Storyline (the second novel really), allows the reader to get a richer understanding of the landscape of the novel. Similar to the type of storytelling found in a Novel Series, the Merged Storyline allows the best of both worlds to occur for the reader. The reader can accept the new characters with no concern about where and how they came to be in the primary storyline, or they can take the time to really understand them. All without having to run back down to the book store to pick up the first or next in the series to get the whole picture. And of course, the reader is also treated to a rich new set of characters and situations that normally one could not find in a standard, paper bound novel. ("Merged Storylines: A Unique Internet Concept" by Michael G. Crawford)

Metacognition: Thinking about one's own thinking; reflection. This is a biggy! Commit this term to memory. Remember. Think. Think about how you think.

Metaphor: A direct comparison between two unlike things that creates a clearer picture of one of the things, i.e. "It is the east and Juliet is the sun!"

Mezzotint: For a halftone, a special screen that produces connected, dusty-looking dots.

Moiré patterns: (pronounced "mo-ray") Irregular plaid-like patterns that occur when a bit-mapped image is reduced, enlarged, displayed, or printed at a resolution different from the resolution of the original. See Scaling.

Monospaced type: A (typewriter) typeface in which the amount of horizontal space taken up by each character is the same.

Multi-User Dungeons (MUDs): Use a simple programming language to build dungeon or adventure maze linked up with those of other players by creating objects out of common building blocks. The MUD is a collective creation - at once a game, a society, and a work of fiction - that is often based on a particular encyclopedic fantasy domain, such as Tolkien's Middle Earth or Star Trek's twenty-fourth century. e.g. TrekMuse, founded in 1990 with over two thousand players, had five hundred people enrolled in its virtual Star Fleet Academy in 1995, each of whom had made up his or her own character, based on the existing Star Trek races (Murray, p 86).

Multiform Story: A written or dramatic narrative that presents a single situation or plotline in multiple versions, versions that would be mutually exclusive in our ordinary experience, e.g. Frank Capra's, It ís a Wonderful Life (1946) (Murray, p. 30)

N

Name Server: See DNS.

Narrative: A first person account of a true event that shows the event but also comments on the significance of that event.

Navigate: 1. to move on, over, or through (water, air, land, or cyberspace) in a ship, aircraft, vehicle, or computer input device. 2. to direct or manage (a ship, aircraft, vehicle, agent, or avatar) on its course. 3. to ascertain or plot and control the course or position of (a agent, avatar etc.) (Webster's Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language, Thunder Bay Press, San Diego, CA 2001, p. 1283).

Navigation (Spatial Navigation): The ability to move through virtual landscapes (cyberspace). Orienting ourselves by landmarks, mapping a space mentally to match our experience, and admiring the juxtapositions and changes in perspective that derive from moving through an intricate environment (Murray, p 129).

Negative space: In design, the space where the figure isn't -- in artwork, usually the background; in a publication, the parts of the page not occupied by type or graphics.
See White space.

Nested stories: In newsletter/magazine layout, stories run in multiple columns at different column depths.

Netnews: See USENET.

Newsfeed: The stream of USENET news articles flowing into a news server from another news server. Newsfeeds are made by agreement between the administrators of news servers. Servers, such as news.znet.com, may have arrangements for multiple newsfeeds, as most servers do not carry all available USENET news groups. If one newsfeed goes down, some news groups will often continue to be received from a feed not affected by the particular outage.

NIC: See InterNIC.

NNTP: Network News Transport Protocol. Allows for a news client or another news server to interact with a news server, usually on port 119.

O

Objected-oriented (mode): The draw graphics mode. A set of algorithms describe graphic form in abstract geometrical terms, as object primitives, the most fundamental shapes from which all other shapes are made: lines, curves, and solid or patterned areas.

Oblique type: Characters that are slanted to the right; sans serif typefaces often have oblique rather than true italics, which are a separate font.

Offset printing: For high-volume reproduction -- utilizes three rotating drums: a plate cylinder, a blanket cylinder, and an impression cylinder. The printing plate is wrapped around the plate cylinder, inked and dampened. The plate image is transferred, or offset, onto the blanket cylinder. Paper passes between the blanket cylinder and the impression cylinder, and the image is transferred onto the paper.

Omen: Anything perceived or happening that is believed to portend a good or evil event or circumstance in the future; portent; a prognostic; prophetic significance; foreboding; a bird of ill omen. (Webster's Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language, Thunder Bay Press, San Diego, CA 2001, p. 1351)

One pager: A tool that may be used to summarize or synthesize knowledge of a piece of literature by condensing significant quotes, words, pictures from a piece onto one page.

Orphan: In a page layout, the first line of a paragraph separated from the rest of the paragraph by a column or page break. Headings without enough type under them may be considered as orphans; there should be as much type below the heading as the height of the heading itself, including white space.

P, Q

Parable: A short allegorical story designed to illustrate or teach some truth, religious principle, or moral lesson. A statement or comment that conveys a meaning indirectly by the use of comparison, analogy, or the like.

Pasteup: The process of preparing mechanicals -- in traditional publishing, positioning and pasting type and graphics on a board (and overlays). In desktop publishing, page-assembly software enables the user to do electronic pasteup.

Pattern: [Principle of Art and Design] 1. a decorative design, as for wallpaper, china, textile fabrics, etc. 2. decoration or ornament having such a design. 3. a natural or chance marking, configuration, or design. 4. a distinctive style, model, or form. 5. a combination of qualities, acts, tendencies, forming a consistent or characteristic arrangement. (Webster's Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language, Thunder Bay Press, San Diego, CA 2001, p 1423]

• Shape Vocabulary: Just as we develop a vocabulary of words to make statements to express our thoughts, shape vocabulary does the same thing through the use of, you guessed it, shapes; a two-dimensional area or plane that may be organic or inorganic, free-form or geocentric, open or closed, natural or of human origin.
  • A line defines the inside or outside edge of a shape.
  • On a very basic level words are made of letters or characters. Similarly, shapes are comprised of smaller units of points and lines.
• Points and Basic Shapes: In living organisms, the cell is the smallest unit of an organism that is classified as living, and is sometimes called the building block of life. In art, the point functions similarly to the cell to form lines and shapes.
• Lines: An identifiable path of a point moving in space. It can vary in width, direction, and length. The thickness, length, and "shape" of the line affects its evocative qualities, how it makes us feel when we see it.
• The interrelationships of forms: In the context of this definition I use form as a more general term to represent forms, three-dimensional volume or the illusion of three dimensions, as well as, shapes, two-dimensional objects.
  • A single point may not hold artistic value, however, when you manipulate it and put it in the context of other elements: forms, shapes, lines, color, value, texture, and space you create patterns and hopefully, art.
  • As the number of forms increases within the basic pattern the spacing between and among the forms adds to the connections, symbolism, communication, and flow of the pattern.
    • Touching: Two forms touch.
    • Overlapping: One form crosses over the other and appears to remain above.
    • Interpenetration: Same as overlapping, but the forms appear transparent. There is no obvious above-and-below relationship among them, and the contours of the forms remain entirely visible.
    • Union: Same as overlapping, but the two forms are joined together and become a new, bigger form. Both forms lose one part of their contours when they are in union.
    • Subtraction: When an invisible form crosses over a visible form, the result is subtraction. The portion of the visible form that is covered up by the invisible form becomes invisible also. Subtraction may be regarded as the overlapping of a negative form on a positive form.
• Repetition of Forms: The act or an instance of repeating or being repeated. Repetition provides a sense of harmony, rhythm, and or discordance. It can provide information about the content elements relationships to one another. It can show movement, distance, scale, and proportion. Repeating elements can place emphasis on the whole while obscuring individual elements or place emphasis on the individual in the context of the whole.
  • "The whole is greater than the sum of it's parts." [emergence]
  • In philosophy, systems theory and the sciences, emergence refers to the way complex systems and patterns arise out of a multiplicity of relatively simple interactions.
    • Shape: Repeating shapes while changing sizes, colors, orientation, etc. creates a sense of a common idea, while exploring the notion of variety and possibly change. You may think of shapes looking exactly alike, or, by observing nature see that no two leaves or flowers are exactly alike. They are similar enough to identify them as the same, but each has it's own individual characteristic.
    • Size: Repeating the same or similar size of a form while changing one or more aspects of the form provides commonality or general equality, but can also place more emphasis on individual forms.
    • Color: All the forms are of the same color but their shapes and sizes may vary.
    • Texture: All forms can be of the same texture but they may be of different shapes, sizes, or colors.
    • Direction: This is possible only when the forms show a definite sense of direction without the slightest ambiguity.
    • Experiment: You can combine shapes and lines with different relationships and repeat the patterns to create a completely different pattern.

Personification: Giving an inanimate object human characteristics in order to create a clearer image of that object, i.e. "The old desk groaned under my weight."

Pica: A measurement used in typography for column widths and other space specifications in a page layout. There are 12 points in a pica, and approximately 6 picas to an inch.

Pixel (picture element): The smallest unit that a device can address. Most often refers to display monitors, a pixel being the smallest spot of phosphor that can be lit up on the screen.

PMS (Pantone Matching System): A standard color-matching system used by printers and graphic designers for inks, papers, and other materials. A PMS color is a standard color defined by percentage mixtures of different primary inks.

Point: A measurement used in typography for type size, leading, and other space specifications in a page layout. There are 12 points in a pica, and approximately 70 points to an inch.

POP: Post Office Protocol. A suite of commands, usually sent to port 110 (POP3) of a server allowing for the transfer of email from the server to the client (user's email software). These commands are issued by the email client, the whole process being transparent to the user.

Portfolio: A collection of work that shows an individual's achievement in a particular area; may also be used to show progress and as a metacognitive tool for the artist. See an example of a web-based portfolio.

Posterization: For a halftone, the reduction of the number of gray scales to produce a high-contrast image.
See Gray-scale image, Halftone.

PPP: Point to Point Protocol. The protocol used to allow two modems to transmit Internet traffic over phone lines. Considered to be more modern and efficient than SLIP.

Printer font: High-resolution bitmaps or font outline masters used for the actual laying down of the characters on the printed page, as opposed to display on the screen. See Screen font.

Process color separation: In commercial printing, used for reproduction of color photographs. The various hues are created by superimposition of halftone dots of the process colors: cyan (a greenish blue), magenta (a purplish red), yellow, and black. See Color separation.

Proportionally spaced type: A typeface in which the set width (horizontal space) of characters is variable, depending on the shape of the character itself and the characters surrounding it.
See Set width.

Pull-out quote: A brief phrase (not necessarily an actual quotation) from the body text, enlarged and set off from the text with rules, a box, and/or a screen. It is from a part of the text set previously, and is set in the middle of a paragraph, to add emphasis and interest.

Pun: The humorous use of a word or phrase so as to emphasize or suggest its different meanings or applications, or the use of words that are alike or nearly alike in sound but different in meaning; a play on words (Webster's Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language, Thunder Bay Press, San Diego, CA 2001, p. 1567)

Punctuation block: In right-justified or right-aligned text, several consecutive lines that end with punctuation and make the right margin look uneven.

R

Ragged right alignment: Type set so that the extra white space in a line is set at the right, giving the text a ragged margin. Usually set with flush left.

Recto: In a double-sided document, the page that appears on the right side of the spread; an even-numbered page.

Reflection: A first person commentary on the personal significance of anything; used to examine one's own thoughts.

Resolution: The crispness of detail or fineness of grain in an image. Screen resolution is measured in dots by lines (for example, 640 x 350); printer resolution is measured in dpi (for example, 300 dpi).

Responding: Reacting to another's work by given sought-for feedback; responses may vary greatly depending on the purpose of the response and the needs of the artist.

Reverse: White or light-colored type of images on a dark background.

Revision: Changing the body (content) of a work to make it more effective; not to be confused with editing. See Re-vision

Rhizome: A tuber root system in which any point may be connected to any other point. Philosopher Gilles Deleuze used the rhizome root system as a model of connectivity in systems of ideas; critics have applied this notion to allusive text systems that are not linear like a book but boundary less and without closure. Walking through a rhizome one enacts a story of wandering, of being enticed in conflicting directions, of remaining always open to surprise, of feeling helpless to orient oneself or to find an exit, but the story is also oddly reassuring. In the rhizome, one is constantly threatened but also continuously enclosed. The fact that the plot will not resolve means that no irreparable loss will be suffered (Murray, pp. 132-133).

Rhythm: [Principle of Art and Design] The repetition or alternation of elements, often with defined intervals between them. Rhythm can create a sense of movement, and can establish pattern and texture. There are many different kinds of rhythm, often defined by the feeling it evokes when looking at it. [http://www.digital-web.com/articles/principles_of_design/] Also see Pattern.

• Flowing: A flowing rhythm gives a sense of movement, and is often more organic in nature. [http://www.digital-web.com/articles/principles_of_design/]
• Progressive: A progressive rhythm shows a sequence of forms through a progression of steps. [http://www.digital-web.com/articles/principles_of_design/]
• Regular: A regular rhythm occurs when the intervals between the elements, and often the elements themselves, are similar in size or length. [http://www.digital-web.com/articles/principles_of_design/]

Right-justified alignment: Type set so that the text runs even on the right margin as well as on the left margin; the extra white space is distributed between words and sometimes between characters on the line.

Rivers: Spaces between words that create irregular lines of white space in body type, particularly occurs when the lines of type have been set with excessive word spacing.

Roman type: Book weight, regular, or in desktop publishing systems, called plain or normal type -- used for the body type in a text-intensive publication.

Rough: A refined thumbnail sketch for a publication design, done at actual size, with more detail. Roughs are often used for the first client review. See Draft.

Router: A computer dedicated to the task of routing TCP/IP packets through the Internet. Simply told, routers act together as a relay system, each pointing to one or more routers upstream and downstream.

Rubric: A scale, guide, or continuum that is created to clarify expectations for a given project and to give specific feedback. See an example of a Rubric.

Rule (ruling line): A geometric line used as a graphic enhancement in page assembly -- the term is used to distinguish ruling lines from a line of type.

Run around: Type that is set to fit the contour of an illustration, photo, ornament or initial.

Run-in heading: A heading set on the same line as the text, usually in bold or italic type.

Running heads/feet: Titles (often accompanied by page numbers) set at the top/bottom of text pages of a multi-paged publication.

S

Sans serif typeface: A typeface that has no serifs, such as Helvetica or Swiss. The stroke weight is usually uniform and the stress oblique, though there are exceptions.

Scaling: Reduction or enlargement of artwork, which can be proportional (most frequently) or disproportional. In desktop publishing, optimal scaling of bitmaps is reduction or enlargement that will avoid or reduce moiré patterns.

Screen font: Low-resolution (that is, screen resolution) bitmaps of type characters that show the positioning and size of characters on the screen. As opposed to the printer font, which may be high-resolution bitmaps or font outline masters. See Printer font.

Screen (tint): In graphic arts, a uniform dotted fill pattern, described in percentage (for example, 50 percent screen).

Script: Connected, flowing letters resembling hand writing with pen or quill. Either slanted or upright. Sometimes with a left-hand slant.

Serif: In a typeface, a counterstroke on letterforms, projecting from the ends of the main strokes. For example, Times or Dutch is a serifed typeface. Some typefaces have no serifs; these typefaces are called sans serif.

Server: Used in reference to a machine and/or software (daemon) that provides services. Examples of such services are mail servers (usually running SMTP), news servers (running a NNTP daemon) and web servers (HTTP software).

Sequence: 1. the following of one thing after another; succession. 2. order of succession: a list of books in alphabetical sequence. 3. a continuous or connected series: a sonnet sequence. 4. something that follows; a subsequent event; result; consequence (Webster's Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language, Thunder Bay Press, San Diego, CA 2001, p 1747).

Set width: In typography, the horizontal width of characters. Typefaces vary in the average horizontal set width of each character (for example, Times has a narrow set width), and set widths of individual characters vary in typeset copy depending on the shape of the character and surrounding characters.

Shape: [Element of Art and Design] A two-dimensional area or plane that may be organic or inorganic, free-form or geocentric, open or closed, natural or of human origin. A line defines the inside or outside edge of a shape.

Showing, not telling: The concept that painting a picture with words that appeals to multiple senses is more effective than stating an opinion. See an example exercise

Sidebar: In newsletter/magazine layout, a related story or block of information that is set apart from the main body text, usually boxed and/or screened.

Simile: A comparison between two unlike objects that uses like or as and draws out a similarity between the objects, i.e. "My luv's like a red, red rose."

SLIP: Serial Line Internet Protocol. Allows Internet traffic to be conducted over serial lines

Small caps: Capital letters set at the x-height of the font.

SMTP: Simple Mail Transport Protocol. The protocol and suite of commands used to exchange email between two servers, usually running on port 25, or to transfer email from a client to a server.

Solarization: A photographic image in which both blacks and whites appear black, while midtones approach white.

Solid: Lines of type with no space between the lines (unleaded).

Space: [Element of Art and Design] The emptiness or area between, around, above, below, or contained within objects. Shapes and forms are defined by the space around and within them, just as spaces are defined by the shapes and forms around and within them.

Spam: Spam is unsolicited email (or news postings), often of a commercial nature and typically sent as part of a bulk mailing. If you didn't ask for it, sign up on a mailing list related to it, or leave your email address on a web form asking for more information on it, it's spam.

Spot color separation: For offset printing, separation of solid premixed ink colors (for example, green, brown, light blue, etc.); used when the areas to be colored are not adjacent. Spot color separations can be indicated on the tissue cover of the mechanical, or made with overlays.

Spread: In a double-sided document, the combination of two facing pages, which are designed as a unit. Also, the adjacent inside panels of a brochure when opened.

Standing elements: In page design, elements that repeat exactly from page to page, not only in terms of style, but also in terms of page position and content. The most commonly used standing elements are page headers or footers, with automatic page numbers.

Standoff: The amount of space between a clock of text and a graphic, or between two blocks of text that wrap.
See Text Wrap.

Stress: In a typeface, the axis around which the strokes are drawn: oblique (negative or positive) or vertical. Not to be confused with the angle of the strokes themselves (for instance, italics are made with slanted strokes, but may not have oblique stress). In life, stress gives us reason to take action (motivation), and when we have too much stress causes us to get overwhelmed and shutdown. Stress management is probably the single most important on-going issue in any person's life. Cope or die!

Stroke weight: In a typeface, the amount of contrast between thick and thin strokes. Different typefaces have distinguishing stroke-weight characteristics.

Style sheet: In desktop publishing program, style sheets contain the typographic specifications to be associated with tagged text. They can be used to set up titles, headings, and the attributes of blocks of text, such as lists, tables, and text associated with illustrations. The use of style sheets is a fast and efficient way to insure that all comparable elements are consistent. See Tags.

Subhead: A secondary phrase usually following a headline. Display line(s) of lesser size and importance than the main headline(s).

Subnet: A subset of a network. For instance, zNET owns subnets under the 207.167.0.0 network, examples being 207.167.64.0, 207.167.87.0 and 207.167.81.0, with each host (computer) on the subnet being assigned a number in the last octet. For example, the address 207.167.80.19 (sj.znet.com) is a machine in the 207.167.80.0 subnet. IP addresses are hierarchical from right to left (from the specific to the general). Domain and host names are hierarchical from left to right, with the leftmost element being the specific host, then working up from one subdomain to the next.

Subscript: A character slightly smaller than the rest of the font, set below the baseline; used in chemical equations and as base denotation in math, and sometimes as the denominator of fractions.

Superscript: A character slightly smaller than the rest of the font, set above the baseline, used for footnote markers and sometimes as the numerator of fractions.

T

T1: A digital telecommunications link capable of carrying 1.544 million bits per second.

T3: A digital telecommunications link capable of carrying 44.736 million bits per second.

Tabloid-sized page: A page that measures 11" x 17" -- most often used in portrait orientation for newspapers. Not to be confused with an 11" x 17" spread, which is made up of two letter-sized pages.

Tags: For style sheets, delimited sets of characters embedded in the text or internally coded. Tags apply to paragraphs (text terminated with a hard return -- this includes titles and headings) and indicate the function of paragraphs. The actual type specification depends on the style sheet that is associated with the tag. See Style sheet.

TCP: Transport Control Protocol. See TCP/IP.

TCP/IP: The underlying protocols and structure of the Internet. A method for carrying packets of digital data in a specific format. All Internet traffic must adhere to TCP/IP.

Telnet: The most common of several methods of logging into a remote server, usually to port 23. A telnet session will run a shell (text-based interface) on the server and provide the user with a system prompt, as though the user were working directly on the machine. It is possible to telnet to other ports of a server, each port running a service, and "converse" with the daemon in its language. Examples are port 80 for HTTP, port 25 for SMTP, port 21 for FTP and port 110 for POP3, each running software that will accept specific commands. For instance, telnet to port 80 of a machine known to run a web server and issue the command: GET /Terminal Server A machine dedicated to the task of accepting dialup connections. Modems are directly attached to a terminal server, some of which are capable of having several dozen connections. Some terminal servers have modems built into them. When a customer connects to zNET, they are connected directly to a terminal server, which verifies the username and password. The terminal server is, in turn, connected to a router, often sitting right next to it, which routes the TCP/IP packets to and from the user via the terminal server.

Template: In page design, a file with an associated style sheet and all standing and serial elements in place on a master or base page, used for publication following the same design.

Texture: [Element of Art and Design] The surface quality of material, either actual (tactile) or visual.

Text wrap: Used when you want text to "wrap" around a graphic or pull-out quote. A text wrap may be rectangular (most commonly), irregular, or arbitrary. See Standoff.

Thumbnails: Miniature pictures sketched as first design ideas, like thinking on paper (or on screen).

TIFF (Tagged Image File Format): For digital gray-scale halftones, a device-independent graphics file format. TIFF files can be used on IBM/compatible or Macintosh computers, and may be output to PostScript printers. See Gray-scale image, Halftone.

Tiling (tile): Printing a page layout in sections with overlapping edges so that the pieces can be pasted together.

Tombstoning: In multi-column publications, when two or more headings in the same horizontal position on the page.

Track: In typography, to reduce space uniformly between all characters in a line. As opposed to kerning, which is the variable reduction of space between specific characters.

True sentence: A sentence written in active voice that avoids forms of the verb "to be". See an example exercise.

Type alignment: The distribution of white space in a line of type where the characters at their normal set width do not fill the entire line length exactly. Type maybe aligned left, right, centered, or right-justified.

Typeface: The set of characters created by a type designer, including uppercase and lowercase alphabetical characters, numbers, punctuation, and special characters. A single typeface contains many fonts, at different sizes and styles. See Font.

Type families: A group of typefaces of the same basic design but with different weights and proportions.
See Light, Black, Condensed, Expanded.

Typography: 1. The art of process of printing with type. 2. The work of setting and arranging type and of printing from them. 3. The general character or appearance of printed matter (Webster's Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language, Thunder Bay Press, San Diego, CA 2001, p 2046). This now applies to digital type applications.

U

U&lc: Abbreviation for upper- and lowercase (capital and lowercase letters).

Unit: In typography, divisions of the em space, used for fine-tuning the letter spacing of text type. Different typesetting systems and desktop publishing software use different unit divisions: 8, 16, 32, and 64 are common. One unit is a thin space or a hair space.

URL: Universal Resource Locator. A specialized syntax for addressing another server or a document, in the form of protocol://host/directory-or-user/directory/.../filename Examples: http://www.znet.com/znet/access/ ftp://ftp.znet.com/ telnet://rs.internic.net/ https://www.secure_site.com/

USENET: A term referring to the vast network of news servers running software compliant with NNTP. USENET is arranged in news groups, of which there are tens of thousands, each having any number of recent articles submitted by users in a "bulletin board" fashion. Only news reader software (and an Internet connection) is required to read and send USENET news.

UUCP: Unix to Unix Copy. A series of utilities allowing for the transfer of files via a serial line.

V

Value: [Element of Art and Design] Light and dark; the gradations of light and dark on the surface of objects

• Value refers to the lightness and darkness of a color. For example, if light falls on a green ball the part of the ball nearest the light will be lightest in value because it reflects the most light. The part of the ball opposite the light will be the deepest in the shadow and thus darkest in value.
• Remember - you can also change the value of a color by adding black (shade), or white (tint), or gray (tone). As white is added to a color it becomes "higher" in value (lighter). As black is added it becomes "lower" in value (darker).
• Use values that are close together to give the design a calm appearance.
  Use values of pure hues as well as those of tints and shades to create movement.
• Use value contrasts to show texture and as an effective means of directing viewer attention in a composition.
• Remember that value is the relationship of light to dark.

Verso: In a double-sided document, the page that appears on the left side of the spread; an odd-numbered page.

Visualize: 1. to recall or form mental images or pictures. 2. to make visual or visible. 3. to form a mental image of. 4. to make perceptible to the mind or imagination (Webster's Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language, Thunder Bay Press, San Diego, CA 2001, p 2127).

Voice: The writer or narrator's personality and style that gives writing or design "umph"

W

Web: A shortened expression for World Wide Web.

Web Browser: A client software package used for accessing the World Wide Web.

Weight: Denotes the thickness of a letter stroke, light, extra-light, "regular," medium, demi-bold, bold, extra bold and ultra bold.

White space: In designing publication, the areas where there is no text or graphics -- essentially, the negative space of the page design.

Widow: In a page layout, short last lines of paragraphs -- usually unacceptable when separated from the rest of the paragraph by a column break, and always unacceptable when separated by a page break.

Winsock: Windows Sockets. A standard for MS Windows software allowing it to interact with TCP/IP and the Internet. Virtually all Internet software running under Windows must be Winsock compliant.

Word wrap: In a word processor or text editor, the automatic dropping of characters to the next line when the right margin is reached.

World Wide Web: An expression for all Internet protocols accessible via a web browser, HTTP being the most common. Other services, such as FTP, gopher and telnet can be accessed with a web browser capable of exchanging commands of the particular protocol with the server and displaying the results to screen. The web, then, is an attempt to bring the most popular Internet protocols under one interface, as opposed to running individual FTP and gopher clients, for instance. Some web clients include complete email and news interfaces.

WWW: Acronym for World Wide Web.

WYSIWYG (What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get): An interactive mode of computer processing, in which there is a screen representation of the printed output. WYSIWYG is never entirely accurate, because of the difference in resolution between display screens and printers.

X, Y, Z

X-height: The height of the lowercase "s." Sometimes referred to as "body height." More generally, the height of the lowercase letters.