Hot metal typesetting: Difference between revisions

In [[printing]] and [[typography]], '''hot metal typesetting''' (also called '''mechanical typesetting''', '''hot lead typesetting''', '''hot metal''', and '''hot type''') is a technology for [[typesetting]] text in [[letterpress printing]]. This method injects molten [[type metal]] into a [[Molding (process)|mold]] that has the shape of one or more [[glyph]]s. The resulting [[sort (typesetting)|sort]]s or [[slug (typesetting)|slug]]s are later used to press ink onto paper. Normally the typecasting machine would be controlled by a keyboard or by a paper tape.

 

Hot metal typesetting was developed in the late nineteenth century as a development of conventional cast metal type.<ref name="Cold type vs. hot typesetters">{{cite web|last1=Kupferschmid|first1=Indra|title=Cold type vs. hot typesetters|url=http://www.alphabettes.org/cold-type-vs-hot-typesetters/|website=Alphabettes|accessdate=20 August 2017}}</ref> The technology had several advantages: it reduced labour since type sorts did not need to be slotted into position manually, and each casting created crisp new type for each printing job. In the case of Linotype machines, each line was cast as a robust continuous block (hence "line o'type") which was useful for rapid newspaper printing. It was the standard technology used for mass-market printing from the late nineteenth century, finally declining with the arrival of [[phototypesetting]] and then electronic processes in the 1950s to 1980s.<ref name="Monotype and Phototypesetting">{{cite journal|last1=Boag|first1=Andrew|title=Monotype and Phototypesetting|journal=Journal of the Printing History Society|date=2000|pages=57–77|url=http://www.letterpress.ch/APINET/IMMPDF/MONOPHOTO/PHS_journal.pdf|accessdate=22 July 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160328052034/http://www.letterpress.ch/APINET/IMMPDF/MONOPHOTO/PHS_journal.pdf|archive-date=28 March 2016|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref name="Guardian 1987">{{cite web|last1=Narewska|first1=Elli|title=The end of hot metal printing: GNM Archive teaching resource March 2015|url=https://www.theguardian.com/gnmeducationcentre/2015/mar/03/end-of-hot-metal-printing-gnm-archive-teaching-resource|website=[[The Guardian]]|accessdate=20 August 2017}}</ref><ref name="Golding">{{cite web|last1=Golding|first1=Emma|title=Making headlines: printing the Guardian newspaper, 1921-1987 - in pictures|url=https://www.theguardian.com/gnm-archive/gallery/2016/nov/18/making-headlines-printing-the-guardian-newspaper-1921-1987-in-picures|website=[[The Guardian]]|accessdate=20 August 2017}}</ref>

 

Two different approaches to mechanising typesetting were independently developed in the late 19th century. One, known as the [[Monotype System|Monotype composition caster]] system, produced texts with the aid of perforated paper-ribbons, all characters are cast separate. These machines could produce texts also in "large-composition" up to 24 [[Point (typography)|point]].