This site is in danger of going away; please consider the Donate link above...

A Line of Composed Typedetails

[Picture: A Line of Composed Type]
previous image
up

Image title:

A Line of Composed Type

Taken from

Status:

Out of copyright (called public domain in the USA), hence royalty-free stock image for all purposes usage credit requested
Please do not redistribute without permission, since running this site is expensive.

Notes:

When the end of a line was reached, and there was no room for more words and yet some space left, the compositor by placing a little extra space between the words made the line fill out the stick. This was called ‘justifying” the line. Each line was lifted out of the stick and placed on a wooden board; thus line after line was added until there were enough for a page.” (p. 52)

The diagram shows a line of (cold metal) type from the side; at the top of the illustration is the part that would touch the paper to make the impression. The shorter pieces are spaces, well out of the way of accidentally getting inked.

Keywords:

Dimensions:

83 x 23mm (3.3 x 0.9 inches)

Place shown:

Filename:

053b-line-of-composed-type-q75-882x268.jpg

Scanner dpi:

2400 dots per inch

Comment:

Download:

Similar images: