WALK-OFF A term in printing to describe the condition of an image on a printing plate, which has deteriorated as a result of use in successive printings. See also ANODIZED PL:ATE; IMAGE; PRINTING PLATE; WASHED OUT

WARM COLOR A color containing yellow or red. Such colors are considered to be warm and inviting. See also COLD COLOR; PALETTE

WASHED OUT A term descriptive of printing or photographs having images, which appear faded. A washed out image lacks distinct highlights and contrasts. See also CONTRAST; HIGHLIGHT; IMAGE; WALK-OFF

WASHUP A term used in reference to the cleaning of the rollers, printing plates or blankets, and ink fountain of a printing press completion of a printing run in preparation for the next printing job. Certain ink colors require several wash-ups as a precaution against ink and chemical contamination. See also CLEAN-UP; INK MIST; MAKE-READY; PROCESS COLOR

WATERLESS PRINTING An alternative term for driography. See DRIOGRAPHY

WATERMARK A subtle design or pattern in paper that has been deliberately impressed by a dandy roll during papermaking as the stock passes through the wet end of a papermaking machine. The watermark is visible when the paper is held up to the light. It may reveal the name of the paper and/or the company logo or trademark. The watermark provides a subtle way of making a document distinctive. Sometimes, paper for a fine book edition is watermarked to indicate that the paper was made specifically for it. The term watermark also applies in desktop publishing to any image that has been electronically faded and used for background. See also DANDY ROLL; INVISIBLE WATERMARK LOGO; PAPER; TRADEMARK

WEB A roll of paper manufactured for use on a web-fed printing press, rather than on a sheet-fed printer. Also, the continuous sheet of paper formed on the belt of a papermaking machine. Finally, when capitalized within a sentence, Web denotes the World Wide Web. See also CUT-OFF; REEL; ROLL-FED PRESS

WEB-FED A term applicable to any printing press that uses a continuous roll of paper as material on which to print, rather than stacks of pre-cut sheets of paper. See REEL; WEB PAPER; WEB PRESS

WEB GLAZING Another term for calendering. See CALENDERING; GLAZED

WEB PAPER A web. A very large roll of paper. See REEL; WEB

WEB PRESS A printing press that prints on paper, which is supplied in a continuous strip from a roll or reel, rather than individual sheets. A web press is also called a web-fed press. See also REEL; SHEET-FED

WEBZINE Another term for ezine. See EZINE

WEIGHT A typesetting term used in reference to the relative boldness or thickness of the lines forming the characters of a font or typeface within a font family. Type of any size or family can vary in weight. Terms, such as thin, light, extra light, semi-light, regular, medium, bold or heavy, semi-bold, extra-bold, ultra-bold, black, and extra black denote the weight. A blocky, boldface font has more weight than a delicate italic character. The weight of a face is determined by the thickness of the strokes, rather than the size of the letter. However, there really is no standard for weight of typefaces. FONT; ITALIC; STROKE; TYPEFACE

The term weight is also used as a shortened version of basis weight, the weight in pounds of a ream of paper, which has been cut to the basis size for that grade of paper. See also BASIS SIZE; BASIS WEIGHT; REAM

WET END The end of the papermaking machine where stock (pulp) is added and much of the water removed by drainage, suction and press rollers, leaving a web of paper which continues on to the drying cylinder. See also FOURDRINIER MACHINE; PAPER; PULP; WIRE

WET STRENGTH The mechanical strength of paper when wet, as measured under specified conditions. See also BURSTING STRENGTH; DRY STRENGTH; QUALITY CONTROL

WET TRAPPING A term to describe trapping in which wet ink is printed over ink that is not yet dry. See also CHOKE DRY TRAPPING; LAP REGISTER; POOR TRAPPING; SPREAD; TRAPPING

Wf An abbreviation for wrong fount. A term used when proofreading to indicate where the wrong typeface has been used for a character(s). See also FONT; PRINTER'S ERROR; PROOFREADER'S MARKS

WHITE LETTER A term sometimes used to denote the generally favored roman and italic typefaces favored by typographers and scribes in Italy during the 15th and 16th centuries. A term that differentiates type from the black letter forms like Old English. See also BLACK LETTER; ITALIC; ROMAN; TYPOGRAPHER

WHITE SPACE The unprinted areas of a page. Those page areas that are free of text and illustrations. White space is an important element of good design. It balances the areas that contain text and graphics, and makes the page more readable, as well as giving an uncluttered look. White space is also called negative space. The term, white space, is used also to describe any characters that appear as blanks on a computer monitor or printer. These includes the tab characters and the space character. See also BALANCE; BLANK; IMAGE AREA; NON-BREAKING SPACE; SPACE BAND; TAB

WHOLESALER In publishing, a company, which purchases books and magazines in quantity from various publishers, warehouses them, and resells in smaller quantities to bookstores, libraries, and other retail outlets. Wholesalers provide a central ordering source for a broad range of books to bookstores, libraries, and others, and a convenient entity from which to reorder. There are a variety of wholesalers. Some are regional in operation, whereas others are national. Some specialize in certain types of books. Others carry hundreds of thousands of titles, maintain large staffs, and offer various services to their customers. See also CONSIGNMENT; DISTRIBUTOR; JOBBER

WIDOW A term in word processing to denote the last word, last syllable of a hyphenated word, or last line of text of a paragraph, if appearing alone at the top of a page or column. Also, the last line of a paragraph if it is much shorter than all other lines in the paragraph. It is generally agreed that widows should be avoided. This can be done by deleting an earlier appearing word or phrase to permit the widow to move to a preceding line, or by adding additional text to join the widow.

Some word processors avoid widows by moving all lines on the page closer together to enable the last line to fit on the same page. Alternatively, some processors can end a page one or more lines early, if it detects a widow, in order to make at least two of paragraph appear on the following page. See also HYPHENATION; ORPHAN; WORD PROCESSING

WIDTH One of the possible variations within a type family, width is the horizontal extent of space that letters use. One typeface within a family may be very thin and called condensed. Another may be broad and termed extended, expanded, or wide. The middle width of typeface usually carries no width designation. Some faces have exaggerated widths, such as ultra-expanded or ultra-condensed. They usually carry names that indicate this. See also CONDENSED; EXPANDED TYPE; LETTERSPACING; PITCH

WINDOW ENVELOPE An envelope that has an opening on its main panel through which one may read an address printed on an insert contained within. See also BUSINESS REPLY MAIL; ENVELOPE PAPER

WIRE A term in papermaking that denotes the wire mesh used at the wet end of the process. It is the flat metal (or plastic) belt that supports the pulp and from which the water drains. The wire plays a role in determining the texture of the resulting paper.See also FOURDRINER MACHINE; PAPER; WET END; WIRE SIDE

WIRE-O BINDING A mechanical method of binding books that utilizes a double series of wire loops to hold covers and pages together. The loops are inserted through slots punched through the inner margins of covers and pages. This binding method enables the book to open fully and lie flat. WIRE O is a bindery trade name for the method. See also MECHANICAL BINDING; SPIRAL BINDING; WIRE SPIRAL

WIRE-PIN PRINTER Another term for dot-matrix printer. See DOT-MATRIX PRINTER

WIRE SERVICE Any news gathering service or press association, which sells news and articles by wire to its subscribers or members. Associated Press is an example of a wire service. A wire service is aso termed a wire agency or news agancy. See also NEWS AGENCY

WIRE SIDE That side of a sheet of paper that lies on the wire mesh belt during the paper manufacturing process, as opposed to the felt or top side. It bears marks from the wire mesh on it. The opposite side of the paper is termed the felt side. See also FELT SIDE; FOURDRINIER MACHINE; LAID PAPER; PAPER; WIRE

WIRE SPIRAL This method involves use of a flexible wire spiral inserted through the holes that have been drilled in a trimmed and correctly ordered stack of individual leaves. The ends of the wire binding are tucked in to form a permanent binding. A narrow gutter margin is sufficient for the wire spiral binding because the pages lie perfectly flat. The holes into which the wire binding passes can be small and located near the binding edge of the pages. See also GUTTER MARGIN; LEAF; MECHANICAL BINDING; PLASTIC COMB BINDING; WIRE-O BINDING

WIRE STITCHING In publishing, a term for a binding operation that utilizes wire staples. See BINDING; SADDLE STITCHED; SIDE SEWING

WITH THE GRAIN A term used to mean in the direction of the grain (fibers) of paper. For example, it may involve a practice of turning stacks of sheets so that folding or printing by a printing press is always done with the grain. See also AGAINST THE GRAIN; GRAIN; MACHINE DIRECTION; SHORT GRAIN;

WOOD-FREE PAPER Paper manufactured almost entirely from chemical pulp, rather than mechanical pulp. The proportion of mechanical pulp that is permissible is limited to a maximum of 5% by mass. As a result, wood-free paper is free of impurities, such as lignin, which are contained in mechanical pulp. Size is added. Wood-free paper is available calendered or supercalendered. Wood-free paper is used for the production of quality books due to its durability and color fastness. See also CHEMICAL PULP; LIGNIN; MECHANICAL PULP; PAPER; SIZE

WORD A unit of language, consisting of one or more spoken sounds (or their written representation), which form a complete expression or can be differentiated from the elements that accompany it. In word processing, a word is a unit of information comprised of characters, that are treated as a single entity and which can be stored in one location. It includes any space at the end of the characters. See also CHARACTER; SYLLABLE

WORD BREAK The insertion of a hyphen into a word at the end of a line in order to separate it into two parts - one that is carried onto the next line and another that remains behind. See also HYPHEN; SOFT HYPHEN; SOFT RETURN

WORD COUNT The length of an article, expressed as the number of words it contains. Rarely are all the words of a manuscript counted. A magazine, for example, will normally use a formula to arrive at an estimate of the length of copy. See also COPYFITTING; MANUSCRIPT; WORD

WORD PERFECT One of the most popular word processing programs for both IBM PC-compatible and Macintosh computers, Word Perfect was developed by WordPerfect Corporation of Orem, Utah, which is now owned by Corel Corporation of Ottawa, Ontario. It can handle a wide range of document formats and contains a large selection of special characters. See also MICROSOFT WORD; CHARACTER; FORMAT; FORMAT TEXT

WORD PROCESSING (WP) A term that encompasses entering, editing, format, saving, storing, and accessing text by means of a keyboard or terminal, magnetic storage, and a word processing program. More generally, word processing is the use of a computer to create, edit, and print text documents. Word processing is the most popular of computer applications. It has contributed significantly to the rise in use of personal computers. Word processing programs have simplified editing and enabled users to correct, or change, and view their texts before printing them. See also EDITING; VERTICAL JUSTIFICATION; WORD WRAP

WORD PROCESSING SOFTWARE Software application programs, which help users to create and edit reports, letters, manuscripts, and other documents. Their useful features include the capability of entering, saving, retrieving, formatting, appending, deleting, moving, inserting, sequencing, deleting, and storing text. Variable margins, various type sizes and styles, and other formatting features are offered by the leading word processing programs. Microsoft Word and Word Perfect are the most popular word processing programs. See also INDEX; MICROSOFT WORD; SPELLING CHECKER; TEXT EDITOR; WORD PERFECT

WORD PROCESSOR A computer application program that enables one to create, manipulate, and print text-based documents. All word processors have some capability for document formatting, such as to change font or page layout, indent paragraphs, etc. The major ones can check spelling and grammar, find synonyms, incorporate graphics imported from other programs, create and print form letters, display documents in several on-screen windows, and perform various other functions to simplify the user's work. Depending upon the equipment in use, word processors typically can display documents in text mode or graphics mode. Text mode typically enables one to use underlining, highlighting, or color to represent boldfacing, italics, and other formatting. The graphics mode permits the formatted pages to appear on the screen, as they will when printed. In recent years, the rising number of features incorporated into word processors have caused them to increasingly resemble desktop publishing programs. See also DESKTOP PUBLISHING; EDIT; FORMAT TEXT; GRAMMER CHECKER; LINE EDITOR; MICROSOFT WORD; SPELLING CHECKER; WORD PERFECT; WORD PROCESSING

WORDSPACING The amount of space between words in typeset text. This varies in typeset copy, unlike text printed on a typewriter, which is uniform throughout a block of copy. Typeset spacing varies in order to facilitate justification of lines of copy. When the word spacing in lines of text is wide, the space between the words may align and create vertical rivers of white space that can be distracting. They usually can be avoided by lengthening the lines or reworking the copy.

In machine-justified copy, the word spacing is uniform throughout the line. Word spacing varies only from line to line. There is a minimum and a maximum amount of space, which can be inserted between words without disturbing the reading process. If the space is too little, then the words will run together. If it is too much, the words separate until the eye has to stop and jump the gap between the words.

Wordspacing is also termed interword spacing. The term, wordspacing, also is used in reference to adjusting the average distance between words in order to fit a block of text into a designated space or to improve legibility. See also FRENCH SPACING JUSTIFICATION; JUSTIFIED LOOSE; JUSTIFIED TIGHT; KERNING; LETTERSPACING

WORD WRAP A feature of word processing programs that begins a new line below automatically when the present line fills to the right margin. As one types past the end of a line, the cursor automatically jumps to the beginning of the next line, rearranging the placement of words as required in order to avoid breaking a word. The cursor wraps around to the left-hand margin of the new line and continues the text, enabling the user to continue to type without pause. It is not necessary to hit the return key at the end of each line. This feature is termed a soft return. Further, the word wrap evens up the lengths of the lines when material is added or deleted or margins are changed. The term is also written wordwrap. See also FRENCH SPACING; HARD RETURN; JUMP; SOFT RETURN; WORD PROCESSING

WORK FOR HIRE A term to describe a writing assignment under which the writer does not retain ownership. Instead, the publisher will own all rights. Alternatively, the agreement by which the writer sells all rights in the work to a publisher. Also, a similar arrangement for a free-lance commercial artist or designer. Although work-for-hire applies primarily to a company's regular salaried staff, some editors offer work-for-hire agreements to free lancer writers. See also RIGHT; FREELANCER; GHOSTWRITER

WORKING TITLE A preliminary title assigned to a book while the manuscript is being written and/or prepared for publication, but before the final title has been decided. Even during development of the manuscript, a name is useful in order to facilitate easy reference to it. See also DUMMY FOLIO; MANUSCRIPT; TITLE

WORK-IN-PROCESS (WIP) A common term to describe products that are in the process of being manufactured. It denotes an intermediate stage between raw materials and finished goods. A corporation's inventory consists of finished goods ready for sale, work-in-process, and raw materials. See also FINISHED GOODS; INVENTORY

WOVE PAPER A finely textured paper that has an unlined surface of uniform opacity and a smooth gently patterned finish. Wove paper is manufactured on a finely textured wire that leaves no visible wire marks. It has no watermark. Although commonly used today, wove paper was first produced in 1754. It was initially formed on a mold with a cover of woven wire cloth, giving rise to the name wove paper. See also DANDY ROLL OPACITY; PAPER; WATERMARK; WIRE

WRAP To flow text around an illustration. Also, to flow text from one line or column to the next. See COLUMN; PIPELINING; WORD WRAP

WRAPAROUND Text that is typeset around the edges of a graphic, photograph, or other illustration within a document. The text flows around the intruding element. Many word processors enable one to flow text around a picture or diagram automatically without the need to adjust lines manually. Wraparound is also called runaround, text wrap, or text flow. See also STANDOFF; WORD WRAP

WRAPPER A term in publishing, particularly Great Britain, for dust jacket. Also called wrap. See DUST JACKET

WRINKLES Irregularities in an ink surface formed during drying. Also, ridges, grooves, folds, or creases in paper created during printing

WRITE A basic computer processing operation in which the central processing unit (CPU) copies information from the computer's random access memory (RAM) to a storage medium, such as a disk drive, or to an output device, such as a printer. The term usually refers to the copying of digital information to a disk. See also COPY; DIGITAL; OUTPUT

WRITE PROTECT To prevent the writing or deletion of information, usually on a disk. To mark a file or disk to ensure that its contents cannot be modified or deleted. Write-protected files and media can only be read. Floppy disks and individual files on floppy disks and hard disks can be write-protected. In order write-protect a 3½-inch diskette, one slides the movable tab to uncover the hole beneath. See also DELETE; FLOPPY DISK

WRITERS' GUIDELINES A formal statement of the editorial requirements of a publication, its schedule of payments to writers, the deadlines for submission of articles, and other information of importance to its writers. See also FREELANCER; STYLE

WRITING PAPER Another term for bond paper. See BOND

WYSBYGI An acronym for what-you-see-before-you-get-it. It is used to describe a preview available of changes considered in work before the changes are selected or made final. For example, a word processing program enables one to view different fonts before they are actually applied to the document. Similarly, the program may have a Print Preview, which enables the user to see how the (entire) printed page will appear before it is actually printed. The user has the opportunity to view the effects of changes before actually implementing them. See also ACRONYM; WYSIWYG

WYSIWYG An acronym for what-you-see-is-what-you-get, wysiwyg is pronounced "wizzywig." It applies to a display on a computer monitor that accurately portrays how the hard copy will appear when printed. It is an accurate screen representation of the final output from a word processing program printed on paper. However, the term is somewhat overstated because of differences in the resolution of computer screens and page printers. A WYSIWYG language is usually easier to work with than a markup language, which affords no immediate picture of changes being made. At one time, only desktop publishing programs were WYSIWYG. However, today most word processors and Windows programs are WYSIWYG. See also ACRONYM

WYSIWYP An acronym for what-you-see-is-what-you-print, which is pronounced wizzy-wip. It implies that a particular computer system can accurately replicate on a printer the colors viewed on its monitor. However, WYSIWYP printing requires that the monitor and printer be calibrated by means of Color Management System (CMS) software. See also ACRONYM