Hot Metal Typesetting

Hot Metal Type Setting

Hot Metal Type Setting 1884

Technology for typesetting text in letterpress printing. It injects molten type into a mold that has the shape of one or more glyphs, later used to press ink onto paper. The typecasting machine was controlled by key boards or paper type.

Two approaches were developed in the late 19 th C. Monotype or Super Caster. Monotype produced texts with the aid of perforated paper ribbons, all of the characters were cast separate (up to 24pt. large).

Each individual type had to be picked out of boxes, set in lines, justified, made in form, and used on the press.

Super Caster was designed to produce single type including even larger sizes for hand setting. Of this system there were five enterprises, Linotype, Intertype, Typograph, Monoline (non-qwerty) and Ludlow (each line assembled in a stick by hand).

Monotype and Linotype both set and cast copy- Lino on a slug and Mono cast as individual letters and assembled lines. Linotype was cheaper to produce a first proof but mono provided easier means of correction.

The first thing produced with Hot Metal was the Bible.

The Linotype machine was invented in 1884 by the German watchmaker Ottmar Mergenthather. It was essentially a large scale typewriter with the ability to set lines of type, automatically. The machine would get each letter put it in the sentence, automatically spacing as it went, it did not change for 100 years. This made mass education possible, putting books at a reasonable price. The Linotype machine was controlled by the International Linotype Union which controlled newspaper typesetting industry.