Typewriter

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A typesetting machine creates typesetting on a special carrier material, which can then be used directly as a printing form or processed further as a master copy in prepress . In contrast to conventional typewriters , word spacing can be adjusted and justification can be created. The first machines of this type came onto the market around 1950.

Typewriters have a typewriter keyboard for entering the text. While with conventional typewriters each typed character is given an identically wide space, typewriters can carry out proportional letter steps. This means that the current position within a line advances differently after the entry (for example a larger step after the letter "M" than after an "i"). In addition, typesetting machines are able to perform a margin adjustment, or to exclude the lines and generate justification. On some machine models, the font can be changed after replacing the print head.

In addition to plain text, the typed text can also be saved on punched tape or magnetic tape for further processing. In the example of the Composer system ( IBM ), unformatted text is entered first and stored on a magnetic tape in a recorder. In a second step, the corrections are recorded on a separate tape. In the third processing step, both magnetic tapes are finally combined in the composer together with the control commands for the formatting and automatically output as excluded text.

The printouts can be made on a special foil or on bright white paper. Some of the slides allow subsequent corrections. They can be used directly as a printing form and can withstand 10,000 to 30,000 printing processes, depending on the design. When printing on paper, a copy template is created that is further processed for printing.

In the 1960s, typesetting machines were considered an economical replacement for lead or photo typesetting machines, but they did not come close to their capabilities. There were several reasons for this: Despite their proportional system, the typesetting machines had a coarse grid for the character width in comparison, which divided a square into five to nine units. Machines from lead and photo typesetting had at least 18 different character widths, which made the typeface more harmonious by more even spacing. Another limitation was the small font size of a maximum of 13 points . Headings could only be created with the help of other typesetting methods or with a subsequent enlargement with the reproduction camera. The margin adjustment also had to be created in several steps.

The advantages of the typesetting machine lay in the lower cost and in the speed with which reproducible templates could be produced.

literature

  • Institute for graphic technology (edit.): Lexicon of graphic technology . 4th edition. Verlag Documentation, Munich 1977, ISBN 3-7940-4078-3 .
  • LW Wallis: A Concise Chronology of Typesetting Developments 1886-1986 . Wynkyn de Worde Society, London 1988.