Short for
prepress service bureau, a company that provides a variety of
desktop publishing services. In particular, service bureaus have imagesetters that can produce
high-resolution output on paper or film. This is a necessary step before printing a
document with
offset printing.
In addition to providing high-resolution output, many service bureaus also offer scanning services, as well as general consultancy. Some service bureaus have computers equipped with desktop publishing software which you can rent by the hour.
