Monotype

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Monotype input unit "button D"
Monotype caster

The Monotype is a typesetting machine for letterpress printing that was invented in 1897 by the American engineer Tolbert Lanston .

In contrast to the Linotype typesetting machine , the setting and casting operations are not combined in one machine. The typesetter sits at the so-called button, a mechanical keyboard whose inputs are saved on a punched tape.

Spatially separated from this, the punched tape is fed into the casting machine, which - unlike the Linotype typesetting machine - casts individual letters rather than complete lines , which nevertheless leave the machine in a row and completely excluded , so that the lines can be put together to form printing blocks .

Types

In addition to the normal Monotype casting machine described, there was also the Monotype Supra , a complete casting machine for large cone fonts from 14 to 72 point font size . With modifications, it could also be used for the casting of dummy material , reglettes , lines and spacers.

The first so-called type A was hardly used in Europe, only the type C and from 1910 the type D ensured the widespread use.

The Monotype can cast around 8,000 letters (over 10,000 on the last machines) per hour.

The monotype was replaced by photo typesetting , in some companies only by desktop publishing (DTP). During the phototypesetting period, the Monophoto was available for sale for a while . It was a phototypesetting machine built like a monotype, but with a film exposure chamber instead of the casting device. The advantage: The monotype's punched tape could be used.

Later developments

The company founded in 1887 as Lanston Monotype Machine Company was taken over by Agfa -Gevaert in 1998 after several spin-offs and reorganizations (including Monotype Typography ) . Shortly afterwards, in 1999, the font and typography division was outsourced to the newly founded Agfa Monotype . In 2004 the majority of Agfa Monotype was sold to the holding company TA Associates and is now called Monotype Imaging .

The business areas of Monotype Imaging are the distribution and licensing of digital fonts and the development of printer and display drivers for displaying digital fonts, especially on behalf of well-known manufacturers of operating systems or mobile devices such as cell phones.

The type company Linotype GmbH from Bad Homburg vor der Höhe in Germany has been part of the Monotype Imaging Inc. group of companies since August 2006, initially with the continuation of its own company name . From 2013, Linotype GmbH will operate as Monotype GmbH.

literature

  • Judy Slinn, Sebastian Carter, Richard Southall: History of the Monotype Corporation . Ed .: Andrew Boag, Christopher Burke. Printing Historical Society, Vanbrugh Press, London 2014, ISBN 978-0-900003-15-8 .
  • Richard L. Hopkins, Tolbert Lanston and the Monotype, The Origin Of Digital Typesetting , University of Talpa Press, 2012, ISBN 978-1-59732-100-6
  • Eberhard Dilba: Typography lexicon and reader for everyone. 2nd edition, Books on Demand, Norderstedt 2008, ISBN 978-3-8334-2522-6 , p. 85 ( eberhard-dilba.homepage.t-online.de PDF).
  • Emil Lürsen: The Monotype. Specialist book for buttons and foundries. Fachbuchverlag GmbH Leipzig, 1954.
  • Franz Zimmermann: The Lanston Monotype. Letter casting and setting machine. In: Klimsch's yearbook. Volume V, Frankfurt / Main 1904, pp. 18-23.

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