Reading the newspaper first thing in the morning has become a routine for many. From the front page to the very sports section, some people enjoy reading it page to page, word by word. Sunday’s edition especially is a big treat for them. With so many supplement entertainment sections. Those Sunday horoscopes or the cartoon or even the occasional sudoku. To think of it, a newspaper contains so much more for every individual.

But while reading it you might have noticed the 04 colored dots or shapes that are printed on the bottom of the newspaper. Ever wonder what it really means? Or why those specific colors are printed in it? Well, we would like to educate our readers today a little bit.

Those colors are called CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow and black), the base colors for all colors used in printing. Any color can be obtained by using these in correct proportions. Plates of all these colors are laid out on a page separately and lined up in the same spot while printing. This is necessary to print a full-color image accurately. If the images are somehow blurry and not crisp enough, you will find the colors overlapping or not in the same line.

When the plates of different colors do not align with each other, it means that the image was not registered properly. The marker is also used to identify the density of colors and dot formation.

On a daily basis, a newspaper printing house would print numerous papers. Which poses a challenge for any individual to check every page of every newspaper physically. That is when these colors come in handy. They help the printer to spot any discrepancies in printing separating it from the good batch.