An old engraving showing the main moving parts of a Linotype machine of the late 1800s. It is from a Victorian book of the 1890s on discoveries and inventions during the 1800s. The Linotype machine is a ‘line casting’ machine used in printing text. It was a hot metal typesetting system that cast blocks of metal type for individual uses. Ottmar Mergenthaler invented it in 1884. Linotype became the main method to set type, especially small-size body text, for newspapers, magazines, and books from the late 19th century to the 1970s and 1980s.
An old engraving showing the main moving parts of a Linotype machine of the late 1800s. It is from a Victorian book of the 1890s on discoveries and inventions during the 1800s. The Linotype machine is a ‘line casting’ machine used in printing text. It was a hot metal typesetting system that cast blocks of metal type for individual uses. Ottmar Mergenthaler invented it in 1884. Linotype became the main method to set type, especially small-size body text, for newspapers, magazines, and books from the late 19th century to the 1970s and 1980s, when it was largely replaced by phototypesetting and then computerisation. The name of the machine comes from the fact that it produces an entire line of metal type at once (a line-o'-type), rather than manual, letter-by-letter typesetting using a composing stick. The linotype machine operator enters text on a 90-character keyboard. The machine assembles matrices (moulds for the letter forms) in a line. The assembled line is then cast from molten type metal (a slug). The matrices are then reused. The machine revolutionised typesetting, making it possible for a relatively small number of workers to assemble type for many pages per day.
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Photo credit: © M&N / Alamy / Afripics
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