A lot of the terms we still use today in typesetting come from those old days of hot-metal; for example, leading, (pronounced "ledding" - the spacing between lines of type) is called that because the spacing was created by putting strips of lead between the rows of characters. The terms uppercase and lowercase characters were used even earlier - referring to the positions of the boxes used for manual typesetting that held those characters. Even our everyday speech contains terms borrowed from typography, such as cliché or stereotype (meaning a printing plate).

By the mid-70s, computerized phototypesetting had replaced the old hot-metal operations. Typesetting machines allowed the text to be displayed on a monitor and recorded onto on perforated tapes and then later onto diskettes. Text was output on photosensitive paper, developed in chemistry, and then galley type and any other artwork was pasted up (usually with a melted wax that allowed the type and art to be positioned) on cardboard to make camera-ready mechanicals. These were called "camera-ready" because after paste-up they were photographed by special process cameras onto a film negative and then the image was burned to metallic or plastic printing plates.

With the more advanced hot-metal typesetting machines, and then the phototypsetting machines, typography (the production of type) was moved out of the printing shop. Typesetting and printing became two distinctly different occupations. The early phototypesetting machines had little to no graphic capabilities; type and graphics were produced separately and then brought together on the camera-ready mechanicals (these were also called keylines). In order to produce type, the typesetter entered code (similiar to the type of code used in HTML) through the keyboard that told the machine how to format the text. The codes appeared on the screen and it a skilled typographers could read the code and get a good idea of how the final text would appear.

All graphics were produced separately from the type. This process took the original artwork and reproduced it for printing by the photostat or "stat" camera. Black and White photographs or similar pictures had to have a halftone screen added to it, which is a pattern of very small black dots that simulate the different shades of gray. Color pictures had to go through a very complex and expensive process of color separation that produced the four process colors: Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Black, and then halftones were made from each of the four colors.

As far as the the range of typefaces available, hot-metal typography required a separate set of characters, not only for each typeface, such as Helvetica, Goudy, Garamond, Frutiger, Times, Century Schoolbook, etc., but also for each version (Roman, Italic or Oblique, Bold, Bold-Italic) and type size. What a pain! When the first phototypesetting machines came out, the fonts were put on plastic disks by a photographic process so that different sizes could be made from the same font. With today’s digital typesetting, fonts are manipulated electronically, so that not only different sizes, but even oblique and bold type can be produced from the same font. (Although we always recommend using the proper unstylized typeface in your documents!)

The latest phase of typography is the move of typesetting from dedicated typesetting machinery to computers running off-the-shelf software. Apple Computer Co. started this revolution with the Macintosh computer in 1984. The next year Apple launched the LaserWriter printers that were driven by Adobe Corp.’s PostScript® page description language (PDL). Desktop Publishing (DTP) was then born. With the cost of computers, software and fonts dropping rapidly, typesetting today is available to more people today than could even read when Gutenberg developed his first press.

Today we have technologies that include direct computer-to-plate output (bypassing resin-coated—RC—paper or film) and increasingly sophisticated graphic and page layout software that is easy to use. With printing becoming more computerized, we will once again see printing and typesetting integrated, if not in the same shop, by partnerships between printers and typographers.

With more and more people looking for "one-stop-shopping" Bigdawg Design allows you to offer full typesetting services to your customers without any of the overhead. Contact us today and let us show you how to build your business.