Text 1 Typesetting in metal

R e v I s I o n 1

VI. Write a short summary of the text.

V..

1. Translate the following sentences from Ukrainian into English
Unit 3 Typesetting and desk-top publishing

This century has seen dramatic changes in the ways in which type is set and in the speed and sophistication of the typesetting process. At the end of the nineteenth century type was still being set by hand, at a speed of around 2,000 characters an hour, whereas now computerized filmsetters can produce more than two million characters per hour.

The last five years have seen the introduction of desk-top publishing, enabling design, typesetting and many origination operations to be carried out on a personal computer, often by the client. This has brought down costs and reduced schedules dramatically, making much smaller quantities of printed items more economical than previously.

The introduction of photocomposition some 40 years ago led typesetting in metal to fall into disuse in the late 70s, and it is now effectively only used by private presses using letterpress to print from metal type. Its demise was linked to the decreasing use of the letterpress printing process in favor of offset lithography. Photocomposition and desk-top publishing output film or disks which can be used directly to produce an offset plate. Also, they do not require the investment of large sums of money in type metal.

It was probably Gutenberg who invented movable type in the middle of the fifteenth century: pieces of metal were cast to carry a letter of the alphabet on their face, and were assembled in lines with metal spaces. These spaces were used to 'justify' the lines -that is, to create straight left and right edges on a page of type by inserting sufficient and equal space between each word of a single line so that the last letter of every line aligns with those above and below. (In unjustified setting the spaces between the words of every line are equal and the right (or left) is ragged. This form of typesetting is used often in publicity and magazine work, whereas most book typesetting is still justified.) Once a job had been printed, the metal type had to be distributed by hand into the correct boxes in the case for reuse. The whole process was therefore slow and expensive.

At the end of the nineteenth century, two methods of mechanical typesetting were invented, which speeded the process of setting in metal.

The Monotype system consists of a keyboard which perforates a paper tape that is then used to 'drive' a separate machine called a 'caster'. This squirts molten metal into a mould to form each individual character and automatically puts the right space between each word to justify the line. Corrections to Monotype setting can be done by hand, by removing the incorrect character, inserting the new one, and adjusting the spaces accordingly

The second system of setting mechanically in hot metal is linecasting. The two (very similar) machines using this principle are the Linotype and the Intertype. Here the keyboard and the caster are combined in one machine. When the operator depresses the appropriate keys, brass matrices are fed into a holder until the line is complete; hot metal is then forced into the matrices to form a solid line of type. This system was used until recently for newspapers and cheaper books such as paperbacks.

Metal type is still used, either to print from directly in the letterpress process or to be converted for use in offset lithography, by taking a reproduction proof on smooth paper, which is then photographed to produce litho film.

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