The Linotype Machine

Called the “Eighth Wonder of the World” by Thomas Edison, the Linotype machine revolutionised printing and society.

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LINOTYPE MACHINE

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ver since I can remember I have loved paper and paper art. About two years ago, I discovered the beautiful art of letterpress. I love how the metal type leaves an impression on the soft paper.

When I was researching typography in the 19th Century, I enjoyed learning about the progression of letterpress printing.

I was surprised to discover the amazing Linotype Machine; an invention that revolutionised printing during this time.

Throughout this document, I have selected to use the font MAXIMUS for the titles, as it closely matches the font used for the Linotype logo. For the body text, I chose a slab-serif font; Clarendon Light. They are referred as Slab-serif fonts due to the their strengthened serifs to prevent damage during the printing process. This made the font style popular for newspapers during the 19th Century. I have used drop caps for the introduction and conclusion pages, and set the IPS to 2mm with a 5mm indentation for each new paragraph.

Veronica Machon

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The Linotype Machine

GUTENBERG’S

PRINTING PRESS

Letterpress printing is a direct impression of inked type or image onto paper using a printing press. Back in the 1440’s Johannes Guttenberg invented a wooden printing press, based on a wine press.

The movable type would be set, inked, covered with a sheet of paper, sandwiched between a padded surface and pressure applied from above by a large threaded screw.

The principle of letterpress generally stayed the same until the 1800s, although many efficient design changes were made. The biggest improvement being the creation of the steampowered cylindrical press invented by Friedrich Koenig and Andrea Bauer in 1814. This letterpress could print 800 impressions per hour, in comparison to the 240 on a Gutenberg style hand press.

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TYPESETTING BY HAND

There was very little change in typesetting. Keep in mind that type is reversed so it is set upside down; left to right.

Each letter is picked from the type case, set on the composing stick, proofread then locked in the forme for

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printing. Once printing is complete, the type is cleaned then redistributed back into the type cases.

This was a slow and costly process – every letter in every word in every book, newspaper and magazine set by hand.

OTTMAR MERGENTHALER

Ottmar Mergenthaler was born 11 May 1854 and raised in Germany.

As a boy his ambition was to become an engineer, but due to family financial reasons he became an apprentice watchmaker at the age of 14.

In 1872 Mergenthaler migrated to America to work with his cousin, August Hahl in Washington D.C. in a machine shop. Shortly he became coowner and they relocated the machine shop to Baltimore.

In 1875, Charles Moore entered the shop with a faulty typewriter style stamping machine, patented by James O. Clephane. Mergenthaler redesigned a working model for them but thought about taking it to another level. He realised he could build one machine to do two things - the casting and the stamping. In 1886, he invented a machine that created an entire line of type at a time, hence the name Linotype.

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THE LINOTYPE MACHINE

I was intrigued by the mechanics of the or “matrixes”, fully justifies each line, Linotype machine and wondered how it creates a cast or a “slug” and packs all technically operated. the matrixes away to continue on for Put in basic terms, it creates a line of the next line. type using individual character moulds

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MAGAZINE Represents a type case. A place where all the matrix are stored in channels.

Each magazine hold different type sizes and fonts.

MATRIX The “matrix� has a cast for each character, with unique V shaped combination teeth. It also has the letter displayed on the side so when they drop down, they can be easily read for proofreading in the assembly area before casting.

SPACEBAND The spaceband is different to a matrix and is stored in a spaceband box, not the magazine. The top section is about the same thickness as the matrices and gets wider at the bottom. The spacebands are longer as they get pushed up so each line can be fully justified.

SLUG A cast created from the matrix line, ready to be set in the galley for proofreading then printing.

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HOW THE LINOTYPE MACHINE WORKS

LINOTYPE 8

The Linotype Machine

Typesetting is performed at a keyboard, different to the one we use today. It has 90 keys, upper case, lower case and punctuation.

Each key press triggers the corresponding matrix to drop down from the magazine, down a channel to land in a line in the assembly area. When the space lever is pressed, a spaceband drops into place with the matrices to form a “matrix line�.

Once the line is complete, the casting lever is pulled and the matrix line is then taken to the first elevator to the casting section of the machine.

The remaining processes are automatic, ready to continue type for the next line.

Once the matrix line is at the casting section, the justification ram pushes the spacebands up to fill the space between the vice to automatically fully justify each line.

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The casting area contains a metal pot made up of lead (85%), antimony (11%) that keeps the metal at melting point at and tin (4%) which creates a slug that approximately 280°C. The hot metal is can be used for 300,000 impressions.

The assembled matrices are placed front of the mold wheel. The mold wheel has four slots for different font sizes. The hot metal plunger descends into the pot, adding to the liquid quantity, forcing the hot metal up a channel to squirt against the matrices, which sets immediately to create the slug.

As the mould wheel does a ž revolution, it trims the back of the slug then is ejected into the galley.

The matrix line is transferred to the top where spacebands are sorted and the matrices are transferred onto the distributor bar. Each matrix is engaged onto rotating screws that move them along the distributor bar.

The distributor bar matches each unique matrix teeth combination.

When the matrix no longer holds onto the bar, it is dropped back into it’s own magazine channel ready for reuse.

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The Linotype Machine

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he New York Tribune was Mergenthaler’s first customer where four Linotype Machines were installed in 1886 and immediately used on their daily newspaper. The first book published with a Linotype Machine was The Tribune Book of Open-Air Sports in 1887.

The Linotype took the world by storm. The linotype was introduced in Europe with a newspaper in Amsterdam. The first French machine was used in Paris in 1898. By 1904 there were 10,000 Linotype machines in use, then by 1954 it grew to 100,000 machines worldwide.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY Archive.org (1960) Typesetting: Linotype (Part I) : Salesian Vocational and

Technical Schools, Italy : Free Download & Streaming : Internet Archive.

Available: http://archive.org/details/Typesett1960 (Accessed: 28 March 2012).

atRifF Blog (2007) History of Graphic Design (and more): Koenig’s steampowered cylinder press. Available: http://arh346.blogspot.com.au/2007/09/ blog-post_9768.html (Accessed: 28 March 2012).

Britannica.com (2012) Ottmar Mergenthaler (American inventor) -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia. Available: http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/376012/Ottmar-Mergenthaler (Accessed: 28 March 2012).

Ehow.com (n.d.) Linotype History | eHow.com. Available: http://www.ehow.com/ about_6638188_linotype-history.html (Accessed: 2 Apr 2012).

Gerald-massey.org.uk (n.d.) Samuel Smiles: ‘Men of Invention and Industry’ (III.).

Available: http://gerald-massey.org.uk/smiles/c_industry_3.htm (Accessed: 28 March 2012).

Mergenthaler Linotype Company (1940) The Big Scheme of Simple Operation.

Brooklyn, New York : Mergenthaler Linotype Co, p.7-11, 13, 18, 25 & 33.

Nndb.com (2008) Ottmar Mergenthaler. Available: http://www.nndb.com/

people/097/000206476/ (Accessed: 28 March 2012).

Wikipedia.org (2007) Letterpress printing - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Available: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letterpress_printing

(Accessed: 28 March 2012).

Wikipedia.org (2010) James O. Clephane - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Available: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_O._Clephane

(Accessed: 28 March 2012).

Wikipedia.org (2012) Linotype machine - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Available: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linotype_machine

(Accessed: 28 March 2012).

Wikipedia.org (2012) History of Western typography - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Available: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Western_typography (Accessed: 2 Apr 2012).

YouTube.com (2009) YouTube - Present! - Linotype with Jim Gard.

Available: http://youtu.be/6gQasrMBALA (Accessed: 28 March 2012).

Zionbaltimore.org (2012) Ottmar Mergenthaler and his Linotype - From the Zion Church History Pages. Available: http://www.zionbaltimore.org/history_people_mergenthaler.htm (Accessed: 28 March 2012).

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The Linotype Machine