You have written a fantastic story. It has been edited and polished. However, how does it move from a manuscript to a book? What brings it to life from plain double-spaced papers to beautifully designed pages? Since the invention of the printing press, the short answer is typesetting. But, what is typesetting, actually?
Typesetting is the art of lining up the types of a page, the character blocks, and placing these in an orderly and well-designed fashion ready for printing. The quality of the design does not only depend on how a single page looks, but also on how each page looks relative to another.
In this article we will dive deeper in the art of typesetting:
- Firstly, we will look briefly at its history. After all, with any old art, some of the language and terms relate to how people worked long ago.
- We will then discuss how typesetting works today.
- Lastly, we will also look at what are the best practices in typesetting for any present-day publication.
What is typesetting?
A brief history of typesetting: it began with Gutenberg
From hand copying to printing
Prior to the invention of the printing press, books were written and copied over by hand. This was an enormous task and took a lot of skill, effort and patience. Each book, as it was written and decorated by hand, was a unique piece of art. Books back then were expensive and only available to those who could afford them.
This all changed with the arrival of the printing press. Traditionally, Gutenberg created the first printing press, although there are local legends around the world that accredit this invention to others. Certainly, printing on material was not new as various cultures used it to dye cloths with motifs. In China, printing of texts, maps and other graphic works already happened towards the end of the first millennium AD. Nonetheless, Gutenberg was the first to produce printed books at a larger scale with a new device.
Older printing techniques initially used wooden or clay blocks with carved-out letters or illustrations. People would then cover these blocks with dye or ink. They would then print the motif, text or graphic on a piece of material (cloth, parchment or paper) by pressing the blocks against it. It worked very much like a large rubber stamp!
Overcoming problems to printing: ink, paper and typesetting
However, there were a few problems that stood in the way to scale up printing of books. Wood or clay stamps would not really work to produce such complicated works on a larger scale. Also parchment, which was the common writing material in medieval Europe, was expensive. The cheaper alternative was paper, but the water-based inks available at the time were not suitable as they would soak the paper.
To overcome these problems, Gutenberg used three upcoming techniques to make book printing more affordable and readily available. Firstly to solve the issue of inking blocks, he used his gold smith’s knowledge of metals to cast little blocks a lead alloy. Each of these blocks had a single letter, special character or punctuation mark. He called these blocks ‘types‘. Each of these types he cast using a metal mold, typically copper, called a ‘matrix‘.
These types he could then place in lines to form words, sentences and paragraphs. He would then place these lines in a larger wooden frame called a ‘galley‘. Each galley he would then lock in a larger frame called a ‘forme‘ (also called ‘form‘). Basically, this is what typesetting originally was and we can most certainly accredit Gutenberg with its invention.
As paper pressing became more and more common, Gutenberg preferred using this cheaper material. He developed a new oil-based ink that would go well with both his lead-alloy types and paper.
Lastly, Gutenberg built a device where the typeset galleys, ink and paper could meet each other. Using the already available screw press technology (think of a giant screw pushing a plate up and down), he developed the printing press. A paper sheet would be pressed up against an inked galley.
Developing techniques and practices since Gutenberg
Manual typesetting
Since Gutenberg’s invention, the main form of typesetting was done by hand: manual typesetting. This is the form where a typesetter uses individual types to make up his galley to print the pages. He needed many individual types of the same character, which can be a letter, number or symbol. All the types of the same character he kept in its own box in a larger tray of many character boxes, called a ‘case‘.
In order to speed up the process for future prints, but also to save on the limited number of types, typesetters made casts of typeset pages. They would press the forme in plaster of Paris, or papier mâché, to make an imprint. They then used this cast, called a ‘flong‘, to create a metal cast copy.
This flong could be used for any future reprints of the same book, making continued book printing far more efficiently. This improved process is the original meaning of ‘stereotyping‘.
Hot metal typesetting
It was not until the middle of the 19th century, that a new technique slowly replaced manual typesetting. Hot metal typesetting involved the process on on-the-spot casting of types already in the right place of a line. Depending on the technique used, the typesetter would punch the casts of types using a large keyboard. These casts would be filled with hot metal to produce the desired characters, words and sentences.
Two terms you may still find from this era. ‘Monotype‘ is the type of a single character, that was cast and set individually. ‘Linotype‘ describes when a whole line of characters was punched, cast and set in one single type. Now these terms are more used to describe how closely font types look like those originally designed by the companies behind each technique.
News papers and magazines were quickly published and printed using this improvement in typesetting.
Phototypesetting
Phototypesetting (or cold typesetting) is a little more technical and complicated than manual and hot metal typesetting. It uses light and photosensitive paper to create a galley. The typesetter would type out a line using a key board, which would either punch holes in paper tape or cause a glass disk to spin around quickly to give each character. Light would shine through the punched tape or the glass disk unto photosensitive paper. Line by line a galley would be ‘burned’ onto paper.
This galley the typesetter then took to be cut and pasted in the right format for a page, producing a ‘paste up‘. This paste up was then used to shoot a film negative to create the ‘plates‘, larger rubber stamps of single pages, that the printer would feed into the offset printer.
This method was only developed in the early 1960s, but it quickly replaced hot metal typesetting.
Digital typesetting
With the advancement of computer technology, typesetting also became a digital venture. Initially, a typesetter would use complex code to mark up a page. This produced formatted pages that were saved as individual images. HTML code to create webpages is one of the descendants of this original typesetting code.
In the middle of the 1980s tech companies released the first word processors that showed you how a page would look like as you worked on it (known as ‘What you see is what you get‘, or WYSIWYG). Apple’s Pages and Microsoft’s Word are examples of these. Desktop publishing became a fact with the result that many publishers shrank their typesetting facilities.
Still, word processors are not fully usable to produce properly typeset pages ready for printing and/or digital distribution. Many special requirements that make a book look professional are either absent or too complicated to achieve. Sometimes, a heavily formatted page becomes so heavy for a word processor that it becomes buggy or corrupts the file.
As part of their graphic design and publishing suite, Adobe developed InDesign that incorporated all the typesetter’s needs without overloading the files. Part of its success is not to store individual images as part of the document itself, but rather create links to each image file. It also creates the right PDF (postscript document format) that is suitable for printing (PDF-X).
Best practices
Keep all page margins aligned
When you flick through the pages of a book, you can see that most pages all start and stop at the same place on a page. Where these edges of the text are called ‘margins‘.
A typesetter keeps these margins all aligned across the pages. Only special pages like the first page of a chapter can be different, but even here the side and bottom margins tend to line up with the rest.
The problem with word processing software like MS Word is that the text does not always align, especially at the bottom of a page. This gives a dancing effect when you flick through the pages. In professional typesetting, however, it is important to keep the margins aligned.
Avoid orphans and widows
Sometimes a paragraph does not fit on a page. One or more lines flow over onto the next page. If a single line of a paragraph flows over, we call this an ‘orphan‘ or a ‘widow‘.
An orphan is the beginning line of a paragraph that is stuck at the previous page. The rest of the paragraph is on the next page.
A widow is the last line of a paragraph that falls on the next page. It is separated from the remainder which is left behind on the previous page.
It is annoying to a reader’s eye that the paragraph text is not all together. The eye has to move between pages to finish a thought. This interrupts the flow. That is why it is best avoided.
Limit font variations
Fonts and typefaces can be a lot of fun. You can lighten a page with the right font. A text can come to life, or simply become much easier to read, if you select the right typeface.
However, changing between different fonts can make it all look a bit chaotic, too. So, best is to limit yourself to only two different types. One type for the headings and the other for the text. ‘Serif‘ fonts (those with the little end lines, like the famous Times New Roman) generally work best for the body of the text, whereas ‘sans serif‘ types (those without the little end bits) are better for headings.
Typesetting at Cardinia Ranges Publishing House
Just like most modern publishing houses, at Cardinia Ranges Publishing House we use digital typesetting. We follow all the industry standards, but still add flare and personality to the page. Each publication is unique and deserves its own design that will both make it stand out, but also be pleasing to the reader’s eye.
We use Adobe InDesign for our professional interior book design and typesetting. Using this software we create print-ready files that any professional printer will accept.
In short
Typesetting is an art with a longstanding history. There are many things to be aware of and to take into account.
Readers and especially retailers and librarians can easily pick those publications that have been designed and typeset well compared to those who haven’t. If you feel like you need the help of a professional service, don’t hesitate to contact us.
You can find out more about our publishing services here.
