immediately under his hand, the upper case directly above in a slanting position, and the under part of the frame is stocked with cases of different fonts. In the upper case are placed all the capitals, small capitals, and a few of the characters used as references to notes. In the lower case are all the small letters, figures, most of the points, and the spaces for blanks between the words. In the lower, alphabetical arrangement is not preserved; each letter has a larger or a smaller box allotted to it, according as it is more or less frequently required; the letters in most request are placed at the nearest convenient distance to the compositor. See article Case for illustration.
Type-Setting or Composing. The setting of printing types in proper order for printing is termed composing, and may be performed either by hand or by machine. (For machine composition, see Type-Setting Machines.) In hand composition, the compositor places the copy before him on the upper case, and standing in front holds in his left hand a short tray of iron, known as a composing-stick. The stick has a movable slide, which may be regulated to any width of line. One by one the compositor picks up and puts together the letters of each word and sentence, and the appropriate points, into his stick, securing each with the thumb of his left hand, and placing them side by side from left to right along the line. When he arrives at the end of his line, the compositor must separate the words, so that they will fill the width of the measure. Spaces of varying thickness are inserted as evenly as possible between the words. When the compositor has set up as many lines as his composing-stick will hold conveniently, they are lifted by grasping them with the fingers of each hand, as if they were a solid piece of metal. He then places the mass upon a shallow tray termed a galley, which has a ledge on two or three sides.
The printer's unit of measurement by which the compositor is paid is the em in America and the en in Great Britain. An em is the square of the body of the type selected; the number of ems that fill a line, multiplied by the number of lines in a page gives the total number of ems of type in the page. The piece compositor is paid an agreed rate per 1000 ems, but the rate varies with different kinds of composition. Tabular matter, mathematical formulas, etc., are usually paid for on a time basis.
Composed type that has served the purpose for which it was set is known as dead matter, and its separate letters have to be distributed into the case for re-use, in new work. The compositor first wets the composition so that the separate types will slightly cling together. He then places a number of lines upon his composing rule, picks up a few types between thumb and forefinger, and drops them one at a time, into their proper compartments in the case.
Make-Up is done by taking composed type from the galley in sufficient quantity to make a page of prescribed size. It is then tied up so that it can be safely handled and is put upon an imposing-stone or iron-topped table. When the page consists of several columns, as in newspapers, the type of one column is placed after another, upon the stone. The pages are separated by suitable blanks, and the whole mass of type is ‘locked up’ by filling the angular space around the type and inside the iron frame with strips of wood or metal and by wedging them with screw clamps or quoins, so tightly that none of the type can fall out. Proofs are taken from the type in galley and in page form, which are read for errors, so that corrections may be made before the type is sent to press. At least two proofs of the type—a galley proof and a page proof—are always taken and read for errors, and very often in careful work several proofs of each kind are ‘pulled’ and read by different persons. See Proof-Reading.
The printer's form may consist of any number of pages from 2 to 128. ‘Imposition’ is a method of arranging pages so that they will follow one another upon the printed paper in the proper consecutive order. The method of imposition or the order of arrangement differs according to the number of pages in the form, but the general principle of the process may be understood from the following diagram of a 16-page form, in which the numeral in each case indicates the number of the page in that form and its location the top of the page. To guide the binder in arranging the printed sheets in their proper order, letters or numerals known as signatures are placed at the foot of the first page of each section. The letters J, V, and W are not used for this purpose.
Stereotyping is a process by which the composed types of a page are founded in one piece. The object is to preserve composition so that it cannot be distributed, to cheapen cost, and save wear of type. Many methods have been invented, but two only are now in use: stereotyping by the papier-maché process, and electrotyping. The papier-maché process is preferred for its speed by daily newspapers; electrotyping by book printers for its greater accuracy, and its applicability
