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OCR (Optical Character Recognition) - a special kind of scanner which provides a means of reading printed characters on documents and converting them into digital codes that can be read into a computer as actual text rather than just a picture.

Off-press proofs - proofs made by photomechanical or digital means, generally resulting in faster turnaround and lower costs than those involved in on-press proofing.

Offprint - a run-on or reprint of an article first published in a magazine or journal.

Offset Printing - (see Lithography) a printing method whereby the image is transferred from a plate onto a rubber covered cylinder from which the printing takes place.

Offset paper - Term for uncoated book paper.

Offsetting - Using an intermediate surface used to transfer ink. Also, an unpleasant happening when the images of freshly printed sheets transfer images to each other.

Ok sheet - Final approved color-inking sheet before production begins.

Oldstyle (US) - a style of type characterized by stressed strokes and triangular serifs. An example of an Oldstyle face is Garamond.

Onion skin - a translucent lightweight paper used in airmail stationery.

Opacity - The amount of show-through on a printed sheet. The more opacity or the thicker the paper the less show-through. (The thicker/heavier the paper the higher the cost-usually.)

Opaque - to paint out areas of a negative not wanted on a plate.

Opaque ink - ink that conceals all color beneath it.

Optical center - a point above the true center of the page that will not appear ‘low’ as the geometric center does.

Optical Disks - disks on which large amounts of information can be stored in binary form representing characters of text or images.

Orphan - line of type on its own at the top or bottom of a page.

Outline - a typeface in which the characters are formed with only the outline defined rather than from solid strokes.

Outline halftone - Removing the background of a picture or silhouetting an image in a picture.

Overlay - in artwork, a transparent covering over the copy where color break, corrections, or instructions are marked. Also, transparent or translucent prints which, when laid over one another, form a composite image.

Overprinting - printing over an area already printed. Used to emphasize changes or alterations.

Overs - additional paper required to compensate for spoilage in printing. Also used to refer to a quantity produced above the number of copies ordered.

Overstrike - a method used in word processing to produce a character not in the typeface by superimposing two separate characters, e.g. $ using s and l.

Ozalid - a trade name to describe a method of copying page proofs from paper or film.