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The Epic Interactive Encyclopedia 1998
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Epic Interactive Encyclopedia, The - 1998 Edition (1998)(Epic Marketing).iso
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Printing
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1992-09-02
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The reproduction of text or illustrative
material on paper, as in books or newspapers,
or on an increasing variety of materials, for
example on tins and plastic containers. The
first printing used moveable type and hand
operated presses, but much current printing
is effected by electronically controlled
machinery. Current printing processes include
offset litho, gravure print, and electronic
phototypesetting. In China the art of
printing from a single wooden block was known
in the 6th century ad, and moveable type was
being used by the 11th century. In Europe
printing was unknown for another three
centuries, and it was only in the 15th
century that moveable type was re-invented,
traditionally by Johannes Gutenberg in
Germany. William Caxton introduced printing
to England. There was no further substantial
advance until, in the 19th century, steam
power replaced hand-operation of the presses,
making possible long `runs', and
hand-composition of type (each tiny metal
letter was taken from the case and placed
individually in the narrow stick that carried
one line of text) was replaced by machines
operated by a keyboard. The Linotype, used in
newspapers (it produced a line of type in a
solid slug) was invented by Ottmar
Mergenthaler 1886, and the Monotype, used in
bookwork (it produced a series of individual
characters, which could be hand-corrected) by
Tolbert Lanston (1844-1913) in the USA 1889.
Important as these inventions were, they
represented no fundamental change, but simply
a faster method of carrying out the same
basic operations. The actual printing process
still involved pressing inked raised type
onto paper, a method called letterpress. In
the 1960s this form of printing began to face
increasing competition from offset litho, a
method that prints from an inked flat
surface, while high-circulation magazines
were printed by the gravure method, which
uses recessed plates. The introduction of
electronic phototypesetting machines, also in
the 1960s, allowed the entire process of
setting and correction to be done in the same
way as a copy-typist operates, thus
eliminating the composing room, and leaving
only the making of plates and the running of
the presses to be done traditionally. By the
1970s the final steps were taken to plateless
printing, using various processes, such as a
computer-controlled laser beam, or continuous
jets of ink acoustically broken up into tiny
equal-sized drops, which are
electrostatically charged under computer
control.