The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC®) is an international non-profit organization established in 1993 to promote responsible forest management through sustainable forestry.

This organization (FSC®) has issued, among others, the Sustainable Forest Management standard 'Surveillance Chain', also known as FSC® Chain of Custody.

The standard describes a management system that aims to effectively monitor the raw materials used by a company producing products relative to wood, forests, logging and their derivatives such as paper and cartons.

Depending on the raw material, a paper may take one of these three claims:

FSC® 100%, FSC® MIX, FSC® Recycled

For more information on the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC®), you can visit the website www.fsc.org.

It is recognized by the logo with the FSC® tree and the relative signs.

Only certified companies, such UPPRESS, is able to legally use this label. Otherwise, there are serious legal penalties. That is why each logo is marked with the unique code of the certified member.

There are specific guidelines and sizes for FSC® signs. The customer must ensure that there is a specific space in the material to be printed, UPPRESS prints the appropriate mark according to the paper used and sends the mock up to the certification body for approval. Approval process usually takes up to two working days.

Since the paper used is FSC® certified and the printing company is also certified, then the printed material is FSC® (even if the relevant FSC® mark is not printed). In this case, there is no need for approval from the organization.

The heliogravure (or printout) is a draft printout, a sample, before proceeding to the final printing. It is a montage paper proof showing the pages layout, how they are connected together and the final folding.

This is a digital print on a conventional inkjet printer which is calibrated frequently and accurately depicts the colors. The digital proof guarantees the ultimate mapping of the requested printing given that it is a valid benchmark of the original sample with the final printing offset machine. In order to prepare an accurate proof, we should consider many factors: correct file , quality specifications, paper type and ink quality and type. It is recommended to prefer certified proofs.

The certified proof is absolutely reliable ie . it can be accurately reproduced in four color. UpPress uses GMG digital color proof, Fogra 39L certified, according to ISO 12647. The proof is sent to customer on Semimatte paper 250gr and, if needed, to Fogra Optical Brightened Agent Certified paper.

Aiming to the excellent quality and the accurate color cinsistency, we use the GMG cetified color management platform which results to the accurate management of colors, ensuring color consistency and low production costs and a saving time and money for everyone involved.
Via mathematical models, and spectral measurement data, we combine all the factors; we analyze the data and simulate the final printing to fully comply with customer’s needs.

The water based varnishes are based on multilateral solutions and have a milky or blur form. Unlike conventional oil based varnish, drying by oxidation, the water based varnish dries by absorption and / or water evaporation.
The coating with water based varnish (matte or glossy), is taking place after the printing and is a type of coating which provides the printing output with better touch and extra resistance.

Laminating refers to the general process of covering or coating one type of material with another, creating a firm bond between the two materials. In the postpress stage, laminating is one of the finishing methods used to give the product protection and/or a more attractive appearance. To do this, films containing photographic or other print motifs are applied under pressure to the material being finished. If a transparent polyester film is applied, this is known as film laminating. Laminated materials are often found on drinks and food menus. For packaging liquids, the industry generally uses films that also protect the product’s aroma.

Creasing means the marking of paper or cardboard in lines where it will be folded. For this purpose, inserted in the cutting dies, special blades without ridge (creasing blades) which make folding guides. The creasing is taking place after the printing process is complete. The creasing is needed when the paper is hard (> 170gr). The creasing process gives us the ability to fold a paper, open and close a book, a folder, etc. without breaking the surface of the paper. The creasing spots are symbolized with a straight line and a sideline to the part of the leaflet. Like a dart with a half pointer.

In order to divide several printed parts of a paper sheet, each of these parts should be separately perforated in order to avoid the use of scissors. The perforated is symbolized by a dashed line.

Adhesive binding refers to the way we bind any kind of printed material using glue on the back.
Stitched saddle binding refers to binding first by thread sealing and then glued to the cover.

By saddle stitching binding, we mean bind the book or leaflet with metal pins on its back. There are two pin types, simple pin and the Omega pin, which takes its name from its shape and sticks out from the back forming a hoop. This helps in the filling, for example, when it is placed in a folder.
In order to proceed to the stitching binding process, the document pages should be multiples of 4. The maximum binding threshold is on 80 gr. paper up to 128 pages or 100-135gr paper and up to 80 pages.

In graphic arts, in order to depict the various color tones, we use rasters i.e. dots. And for more accurate mapping of halftones they are named halftone rasters. The inability of offset printing to print densities resulted to the use of raster. Using the rasters, we adjust the spacing, the layout, the size and we create more concentrated or more dilute sets, which succeed one another and finally give the visual impression of the image.
This method relies on the fact that the human eye distinguishes only tonal display created by dots and not the dots themselves.
The rasters are generated during the prepress stage. There are two basic types of raster: AM (Amplitude Modulation) and FM (Frequency Modulation).
Also, the rasters are measured in lines per inch while the resolution of a printer is calculated in dots per inch (dpi). The result of a print is fairly depending on the definition of dpi & lpi. The two parameters always work together. The number of rasters can not be unlimited in a printout.

There are various raster shapes, which can be used simultaneously in order to avoid the creation of moiré. These are: round, elliptical and square. The shape depends on the printing method or the CTP type.

Moiré is the result obtained when the rasters are not correctly positioned one above the other during the montage process. This result seems like tulle with wavy appearance.

It is the printing technique on a colored background, covering everything that underneath. The black color overlays all other colors and therefore is ideal for small print and text. The other colors are not overprinted because they become altered.

More specifically, when we print on a colored background, then a hole is created which means a negative text. Then, the hole is covered with text. This technique requires that the coincidences of films are accurate. Otherwise, when printed, a white outline appears around the text. In order to avoid this white border, we print overprint. During this process, we avoid creating a hole in the background but we obtain comprehensive printing and we print the text above. In overprint we attend not to alter the text color from the color that is in the background. Prerequisite for the correct performance is that the text to be printed on the colored background to be also colored (not white).

We select File → Export [⌘ + E]. In Format we choose Adobe PDF we choose Save and follow the dialogue with the parameters that we will define, depending on the type of form (pages, format, etc.) and printing settings we want (all pages, only a part of the form, etc.)

General: In Preset we select Press quality * - In the Standard we let none. The other options are referring to specific printing settings and we choose them in consultation with the typographer. In Compatibility we define the Acrobat version we will use (we let the Acrobat 5 which is a fairly safe option). In Pages we select All (or Range in case we want to extract some pages of our form. In this case, we define our pages from-to, eg. 2-5). We check the Spreads in case we want to export our file to double-page spread (facing pages). (Usually we not preferring it, typographers ask files page per page in order to assist the paging).

Compress: Since we have selected Press Quality, adjustments in category Compression are appropriately adjusted for printing (this is why we choose the press quality ...). We do not change them if there is no specific reason.

Marks and Bleeds: To Marks we check the Crop Marks in order to enter cut points automatically. The rest is not necessary.

In the Bleed and Slug we check the Document Bleed Settings given that we have already defined bleed on our file and we want the cut points (as checked in the above) to include our bleed. We check the Include Slug Area in case we have set slug. The Slug is the margin we leave when designing a form (equivalent to bleed) for folding or perforation points. eg. in a 3-fold form we define bleed 0.5cm (and the cutting points are automatically placed in the closing of the form in the manner described above) and slug 1cm (should be bigger than the bleed in order to be above). In this margin we put manually dashed lines at points that the sheet will fold in order to show the typographer the creasing.

Output: Since we have selected the Press Quality, automatically the settings in Output category are appropriately adjusted for the printing press. We will change them in special cases where we use specific color profiles rather than the computer's default (which are regulated under European color profile).

To the Ink Manager we see the rates of four colors in our brochure. In the same time, we also check that there are no extra colors (eg. A pantone that we do not want to be printed, but we forgot to any point of the brochure). This, of course, can be checked also later, in Acrobat.

Advanced: Once we have selected the Press Quality, automatically the settings in Advanced category are appropriately adjusted for the printing procedure. We don’t change them.

These settings define whether to fully integrate when leaving entire fonts or only the specific characters that appear in our brochure. Naturally, we prefer to integrate them all, for security reasons.

Security: Similarly, to the Security category we do not need to check anything. These settings are related to security of the brochure by setting a password that will give the typographer to open it.