The early printers cast their own type; made their own ink-balls, or ink-rollers; instructed some local blacksmith to make the iron frames or chases in which the types are confined for printing; and either made or designed the wooden cases and stands that held their type. With the advent of the iron hand press and the cylinder press or machine, press-building be came a separate business. (See PRINTING PRESSES). Early in the 19th century the mak ing of type or type founding was separated from the printing office. (See Type). Paper« folding machines began to be manufactured about 1860, and as these developed, and other conveniences were discovered, the business of binding became separated. (See BooestND 'No). About the same time experimental type composing machines were built, culminating in the Linotype or slug-casting machine. (See ComPosnic MACHINES). Stereotyping, elec trotyping, photo-engraving, lithography, all have come from the printery and de veloped into separate arts or industries, and to gain a broad view of modern printing all these subjects should be consulted by the students. At the present time a very large part of the composition work on books and news papers is performed by machine instead of by hand. One of the great troubles with hand composition is the time necessary for distribut ing the so-called dead matter after it has served its purpose on the press or in giving the impression for an electrotype. Make-up is the term employed to designate the taking of com posed type from the galley and building or making it into a page of the prescribed size, adding titles and folio or page numbers, etc. Proofs are taken from type in galley and also in page form. These are read for errors and corrections are made before going to press. The form or number of _pages placed on the press at one time varies from two to 128, ac cording to the size of the type page and the size of the press. Imposition is the placing of the pages on the press in such a manner that when the printed sheet is folded the pages will fol low one another in consecutive order. A letter or number called the signature is placed at the foot of the first page of each section and serves as guide to the binder in assembling or gather ing the sheets. Stereotyping is the casting of a page in one piece. Its object is to save the wear on new type-faces and also to permit the release of the type for other work. Stereotyp ing is now performed by electrotyping and by the •apier mache process. In the former the type page is impressed on wax, which is then sprinkled with carbon and iron filings, after which it is immersed in a bath of sulphate of copper through which an electric current is passed. Thereupon a copper coating is posited on the wax filling out the convolutions of the type. After sufficient strength of copper is so deposited the coat is backed up with softer metal, is taken out, trimmed and beveled, and if necessary is made type-high by affixing to a block of hardwood. Papier mache work is the favorite with newspapers. The autoplate machine is now in general use. Its operation is entirely automatic.
Printing rollers consist of a mixture of glue, glycerine, glucose and sugar. The formula of mixture is varied to suit the speed of the machine and the temperature of the pressroom. In summer it is a frequent happening in a press room to have one or more rollers melt under high speed.
Previous to 1865, printing was largely a handicraft. It is true that power presses had come into use for daily newspapers, and also that in some of the printing offices the mass of printing was done on presses operated by man-power, either with a hand crank or lever, or by a treadle for the foot. The type was set wholly by hand. The few pictures in troduced were either cut laboriously in wood (see WOOD ENGRAVING), or they were drawn on transfer paper, and printed lithographically, and these litho-presses were also run mostly by hand. In the period of about 1875 to 1895 the
methods of printing underwent an almost com plete change, so that modern printing may really be classed as a new art, or a series of developed branches of industry all working to a common end, the attractive and cheap reproduction of reading matter and illustrations. Printing is now mainly the product of machinery, of a great variety of types, intelligently guided by specialists, few of whom are all-round printers, knowing the art in detail. The typecasting and typesetting or linotyping is almost wholly machine work; the presses all run by power, and are mostly fed from a roll of paper or supplied with sheets by automatic feeding niachines. Many presses deliver their product folded; if not folded it usually goes to a folder, and may be also ruled, punched, em bossed, numbered or wire-stitched by machinery. The pictures are drawn by professional artists, photo-engraved, and may then be duplicated by electrotyping, and placed with type in forms for printing. Color printing has advanced, both from the lithographic and typographic side, until the most beautiful and artistic reproduc tions of paintings are sold with period icals or given away to advertise g s.
When the term printing is used without qualification, typographic printing from relief plates is understood; but there are many other processes properly included in the broad term printing. The most common of these is lithog raphy, which was originally done from a flat porous stone, but is now executed chiefly from aluminum and zinc plates, which are available for rotary presses, and which have vastly increased speeds. Wallpaper printing is also a different art. The typewriter really prints, though we use the word writing for its accomplishment. The neostyle which reproduces typewriting effects, is really a print ing machine, and so are a number of other duplicators on the market, as the mimeo graph, multigraph, etc.
Bibliography.— Bigmore and Wyman,
liography of Printing) (3 vols., London 1880 86); id., 'Dictionary of Printing and Book making' (New York 1894) ; 'List of Books on the History and Art of Printing' (Boston 1906) ; Cochrane, 'Modern Industrial Progress' (1905) ; DeVinne, Theodore, 'Invention of Printing' (2d ed., New York 1878); id., 'His toric Printing Types' (ib. 1886); id., 'Practice of
(ib. 1904); id.,
Printers of Italy during the Fifteenth Century' (ib. 1910) ; Duff, E. G.,
Printed Books' (London 1893) ; Foulman, Karl 'Geschichte der BuchdruckerIcanst) (Vienna 1882); Francis, 'Printing for Profit' (1917) ; Gage, F. W., 'Modern Press Work' (Chicago 1909) ; Gress, E. G., 'Art and Practice of Typography' (New York 1910) Hansard, T. C.,
An Historical Sketch of Printing' (London 1825); Heabler, Konrad, 'Early Printers of Spain and Portugal' (London 1897) ; Hoe, Robert, 'Short History of the Printing Press' (New York 1902) ; Hoe, R. M., 'Literature of Printing' (London 1877) • Jacobs, C. T., 'Printing' (New York 191)i) ; Kennard, J. S.,
Early Printers and their Colophons' (Philadelphia 1902); Legros and Grant,
Printing Surface' (New York 1914) ; Madan, Falconer, 'Oxford Books' (2 vols., Oxford 1912) ; Pasko, 'Dictionary of Printing and Bookmaking' (1894) ; Pollard, A. W., 'Fine Books' (London 1912) ; Putnam G. H.,
and their Makers during the Middle Ages) (2 vols., New York 1896-97) ; Ringwalt, J. L,