This dictionary covers design, prepress and printing topics.
It was created with the help of Stan Schwartz.

A-B-C-D-E-F-G-H-I-J-K-L-M-N-O-P-Q-R-S-T-U-V-W-X-Y-Z

L*a*b*
Colour space. See CIE color space.

Lamarr Hedy
Famous movie actress from the 30s and 40s who was one of the first to appear nude in a major movie. During the second World War she also invented (along with George Antheilt) spread spectrum technology which is used in modems and mobile phones nowadays. A drawing of her face is still used by Corel for their drawing program Corel Draw. Apparently they never had permission for this (or were not aware of it) and Hedy took Corel to court. Both parties reached a settlement out of court.

LAN
Abbreviation for Local Area Network, a group of interconnected computers in one geographical area that share resources.

land line
A copper wire or fiber optic cable, above or below ground, that is used to send data. A telephone system is a typical example.

landscape
Describes a horizontal orientation of a page format, as opposed to portrait, which is a vertical orientation.

LASER
Abbreviation for Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation: a device that amplifies a single frequency of light within the spectrum to create a directional, intense beam. That beam of light can be used to write data on a printing plate or film. Fortunately lasers are also used in CD-players and disco’s so you can have fun with them as well.

laser diode
A solid-state miniature exposure lamp emitting a small spot of light. Laser diodes are used in some imagesetters.

laser printer
A desktop output device that produces images from digital data on paper or film. The images can be text, graphics, or halftones. Somewhat like a photocopying machine, the laser printer’s cylinder is electronically charged to make it lightsensitive. The cylinder is exposed with a laser to create the invisible latent image that will accept toner particles. The toner is applied, the particles are transferred from the cylinder to the paper, and fused with heat and pressure.

layout
A drawing, sketch or plan of a piece, page or advertisement showing all elements in position, a “blueprint”.

LC
Abbreviation for LowerCase

LCD
Abbreviation for Liquid Cristal Display: a display that uses liquid crystals. The best display quality is offered by so-called TFT LCD screens.

LDAP
Abbreviation for Lightweight Directory Access Protocol

lead
Distance traveled for each rotation of a screw.

leaders
A row of dots, hyphens, periods or dashes used to “lead” the eye of the user across the page.

leading
The space between lines of type in a block of text (pronounced “ledding”). Leading is usually expressed in points, like the size of text itself. It includes the point size of the text; so 10 point text set with 10 point leading would have the lines of type touching each other. Conventionally a leading of 120% is used in a normal block of body text; so a 10 point type is normally set with 12-point leading.

leading edge
See gripper edge

LED
Abbreviation for Light Emitting Diode

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