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 machinesmachine]]s, 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>