Banner Comun Subhome

Glosario de términos

Search by letter:

F

  • Face and orientation sorting
    Mechanical operations to place banknotes in a particular position. Facing is the operation which places banknotes with their obverse side up, looking at the observer. Once faced, orientation consists of placing the unprinted area of the watermark to the left and the main printed image to the right. The historic source of these terms comes from the fact that banknotes traditionally bore a portrait on their obverse side, and so facing consisted of placing all the portraits of faces looking at the observer and orientation placing the head of the portrait facing upwards. On euro banknotes there is no portrait, but the main image on their obverse side (windows and gateways) fulfils a similar function. It is easier to machine process banknotes if they are sorted.
  • Fibres
    A security feature on banknotes that is incorporated during the manufacturing of the paper. The fibres can be coloured and visible to the naked eye, such as in the US dollar bills, or colourless and fluorescent, as in euro banknotes.
  • Fluorescence
    Visible radiation emitted by certain substances on being illuminated by invisible radiation such as ultraviolet light rays. Examples of fluorescence in document security are the fluorescent fibres incorporated in the paper, and the fluorescent dyes included in many banknotes, cheques and plastic cards.
  • Fluorescence in daylight
    The term used for the fluorescence of ink under white light.
  • Four-colour printing (quadrichromy)
    Printing which combines the three primary colours, yellow, magenta and cyan and black as a key colour, in order to achieve the maximum print contrast.