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

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QC
Abbreviation for Quality Control

QIC
Abbreviation for Quarter Inch Committee, committee defining standards for tape-backup units that use quarter inch wide tapes.

quad
A square space the size of an em that was used in lead typesetting to space out a line to its full justified width so that each letter was held in place when the frame was moved. For example, to quad right, the typesetter placed all the quads on the left side of the line to push the type to the right. Used in photographic typesetting as a placement term. Originally a piece of type metal used to fill out lines and spacing between words.

quadding
The process of aligning type, as in quad left, quad center or quad right.

quad center
To align a line of type in the center of the preset line length, with an equal amount of space on the left and right hand sides.

quads
A term used in the colour prepress trade to refer to the four separated films, cyan, magenta, yellow and black.

quartertone
Picture tonal values produced with dot size percentages of approximately 25 percent dot area.

queue
A list of files that are stored on a computer, waiting to be printed.

QuickDraw
The graphics model that is used by applications to generate the screen display on the Macintosh running MacOS. The native file format used to store QuickDraw graphics is called PICT. In OS X, QuickDraw was replaced by a technology called Quartz, which is based on PDF.

quick printer
A printer who specializes in quick turnaround and smaller runs, though the difference between a quick printer and a commercial printer is getting less distinct.