Printed matter

“ The introduction of three distinct methods of printing, by different persons and in different places, but during the same period, shows that a general need of books or of printed matter had given a strong impulse to the inventive spirit of the fifteenth century. ”

“ Focus on printed matter at a distance just beyond that at which perfect clearness is given and gradually approach until the letters are distinctly defined. The instrument with which the print can be read at the greatest distance has the best definition. ”

“ The type matter is cast into to a cylinder. The paper to be printed upon stereotypes of circular form which are attached is in a continuous roll and passes between the stereotype cylinder and another roller. The paper is fed into the press automatically, and is automatically folded and counted. The largest perfecting press in the world will print, fold, and count both sides of an eight-page paper at the rate of 300,000 copies an hour, but the average perfecting press does not deliver more than 75,000 copies an hour. ”

“ The type, or character used in printing, is a composition of lead and pure antimony, which, melted, form a resisting and at the same time supple mixture. Lead alone would be crushed, and the first printers often suffered in making their experiments. ”

“ When we speak of the invention of printing, we mean the invention of the art of multiplying books by means of single types capable of being used again and again in different combinations for the printing of different books. ”

“ The art of collecting together and arranging movable types for the purpose of printing, in one or more colours, by pressure applied from a flat surface or by means of a cylinder biting the paper to be printed, and which is inserted between itself and the type. ”

“ When we consider that printing of a rudimentary kind had existed for so many centuries, and that during the whole of the early part of the fifteenth century examples with words or even whole lines of inscription were being produced, we can only wonder that the discovery of printing from movable types should have been made so late. ”

“ What then are some of the points that we may call in science to settle? We know surely that fine type, bad presswork, pale ink on gray paper are all bad for the eyes. But there are a host of other matters connected with printing, we may even say most matters, in regard to which our knowledge is either uncertain or indefinite. ”

“ Large surfaces, such as big leaves, large flat flowers, broad stripes that have to be printed in one colour, are never successful in machines, wanting solidity of colour. Hand-printed papers run no such risk. ”

“ Of whatever substance the matrices were made, the first printers appear early to have mastered the art of justifying them, so that when cast in the mould they should not only stand, each letter true in itself, but all true to one another. Nothing amazes one more in examining these earliest printed works than the wonderful regularity of the type in body, height, and line ”

“ The requirements of accuracy and cheapness can be met only by making them of metal, and casting them in a mould of metal.10
Although it is clearly understood, by all persons who have a practical knowledge of the subject, that practical types can be made only by casting, many popular books repeat the old story that the first typographic books were printed with types which had been cut by hand out of wood or metal. Whether the mechanics of the middle ages could have done what modern mechanics cannot do,—cut types with bodies of satisfactory accuracy—need not now be considered. ”

“ The complete examination of an art paper, apart from the practical test of printing, involves the determination of the amount of coating matter added to the paper, the proportion of glue in the coating, and the usual analysis of the paper itself. ”

“ Printing has established, as indestructible, all knowledge, and disseminated, as the common property of every one, all thought; while paper has made the work of printing cheap. Such reflections as these, however, are trite, and must occur to every mind. ”

“ Being opaque, suitable for half-tone printing, and of good appearance, imitation art is used largely for illustrated magazine work, and serves the purpose well, but it should be remembered that the large proportion of mineral matter renders the paper liable to disintegration from frequent handling. ”

“ In modern printing it is often the case that the printing surface actually used in the press (see Printing) is not the original forme of type, whether consisting of separate type set up by machine or by hand, or of Linotype slugs, but a reproduction of it made by electrotyping or by stereotyping. ”

“ In the beginning, as we have seen, the cutters of wood blocks and the printers were often the same people, preparing their characters or their blocks, and afterwards putting them under the press. Large printing offices had very quickly changed that. Each particular work had its special workman. Typography had its type-founders, compositors, forwarders, inkers, and pressmen. In the eighteenth century this was complicated by designers, engravers, plate-printers, and these different professions occupied themselves on the Book in manipulating the sheets in their turn. ”

“ We place the negative and paper in contact, then, in what is called a printing frame, so that light may shine through the negative and impress the image on the sensitive paper. It is obvious that the light parts of the negative will let through the most light, and that consequently the silver emulsion on the paper underneath will be most blackened, while the dark parts will hold back the light and the emulsion on the paper underneath will be less affected. ”

“ That if all Printers were determin'd not to print any thing till they were sure it would offend no body, there would be very little printed. ”

“ Xylography, the rudest method, was the first in use; typography, a more useful method, soon followed; copper-plate printing, the artistic method, was the proper culmination. The order of invention was that of progressive development from an imperfect to a perfect method. ”

“ When examining the prints in the printing frames, care should be taken not to expose them unduly to light; for the degradation of the whites of the paper due to slight action of light is not visible until after development. ”

“ Printing owes its development first and chiefly to movable metal types. The so-called invention of printing was the discovery of a method of making serviceable type in quantity. The idea of a separate type for each letter of the alphabet was probably conceived long before Gutenberg’s time, but it remained for him and his associates to devise an apparatus for making them quickly and accurately enough to be of practical value. ”

“ It was, we see, a curiosity then, this relief cutting, of which the resurrection was to give an enormous impulse to the Book from the facilities of printing and the economies realised by the possibility of intercalation in periodicals. In fact, metal printing necessitated so much trouble, more for engraving than for the impression. With wood blocks surrounded by type the ordinary press sufficed. ”

“ It has been said inventions will always be made when the need for them has arisen, and this is the real reason, perhaps, why the discovery of printing was delayed. The intellectual requirements of the mediæval world were not greater than could be satisfactorily supplied by the scribe and illuminator, but with the revival of letters came an absolute need for the more rapid multiplication of the instruments of learning. ”

“ The process of converting these different ingredients into pure white paper is a most interesting one, but we shall pass on to other materials used in making the newspaper without further notice.
The central idea in the printing process is the movable type from which the impression, which we call printing, is made. Types are composed from an alloy known as type metal. Its chief ingredient is lead; antimony is added to make it more stiff, and tin to give it toughness. ”

“ The printing surfaces used in the production of books and newspapers, apart from wood- or process-blocks and casts, and apart also from such surfaces as are obtained by means of the Linotype and kindred machines, are made up primarily of an aggregation of separate types, each representing a letter, mark or sign, though the actual surface employed on the printing press is frequently a duplicate copy made by a process of stereotyping or electrotyping. ”

“ In printing, the successive lines of type which form a paragraph, block, or connected series of paragraphs or blocks, are considered as a mass. An initial letter may be another mass; a head-band still another; and ornaments or illustrations may form other masses. All must be considered as mass elements in the design of the page, with rule borders as surrounding lines, or heavier designed borders as surrounding masses. ”

“ To the aid of the ordinary printing press came electrotyping, stenographic colour printing, engraving, and smaller job and card presses, all entirely new creations within the century, and of infinite variety, each in itself forming a new class in typographic art, and a valuable addition to the marvellous transformation. ”

“ No one for a moment can pretend that printing is so great a discovery as writing, or algebra as language. What are the most brilliant of our chemical discoveries compared with the invention of fire and the metals? ”

“ In ordinary printing, especially of high-class and delicate engravings, the quality and fluency of ink, the smoothness of surface and hygrometric conditions of paper—due sometimes to local atmosphere, and sometimes to climate generally—the skill of workmen, all the conditions co-operate in producing variations, slight it may be, but noticeable in the results obtained. ”

“ While too much science is often deadly to art, the true basis of pictorial composition is rigidly scientific, and all of the principles governing it are of use and importance to the printer, especially in planning displayed work and in title pages. ”

“ Art demands that the print be a part of the paper upon which it is impressed, much as the plant is a part of the earth in which its roots are buried, and utility demands that the print shall be strong and clear that reading may be made easy. The artist-printer lessens the contrast between print and paper by printing with gray ink on gray stock, brown ink on light brown stock, and so forth. The utility printer gets the maximum of contrast by printing with black ink on white stock. ”

“ The merit of printing with types cannot be fully appreciated until it has been contrasted with the printing that preceded types. It will be an instructive lesson to trace the origin of a great art to its sources. ”

“ It is only possible to approximate to the printing of a flat or graduated tone by producing a broken or granulated surface which shall present a series of lines or dots that, when inked and impressed upon paper, shall by the variations of proximity and size give the impression of an unbroken tone. ”

“ If printing should be found too difficult, sketches of leading lines—at the points indicated—would still be of very great value, taking care that the directions corresponded with the furrows, and not in reverse, as when a simple impression is taken. ”

“ We must now take notice of two theories or traditions which have been current for a long time as to some intervening stage between the art of block-printing and the art of printing with movable cast types. [39] One theory or tradition would have it that the inventor of printing, after the idea of single, individual, movable types had arisen in his mind, practised his new invention for some consider able time with wooden types, and that he came only gradually to the idea of movable types cast of metal. ”

“ Nothing in the history of printing is so remarkable as the beauty of almost its first efforts. Other notes are -
4. The absence of figures at the top of the pages, and of signatures at the foot. The thickness and solidity of the paper, the absence of the printer's name, of the date, and of the name of the town where the press stood, and the abundance of crabbed abbreviations, are all marks, more or less trustworthy, of the antiquity of books. It must not be supposed that all books published, let us say before 1500, are rare, or deserve the notice of the collector. ”

“ Shorn of all the romance and glamour which seem inevitably to surround every early phase of typographic art, a Printer’s Device may be described as nothing more or less than a trade mark. It is usually a sufficient proof that the book in which it occurs is the work of a particular craftsman. ”

“ Magnified 50 diameters
considerable experience is required before one is able to formulate the furnish of a paper consisting of two or more kinds of fibre, as the different fibres have varying dimensions and weights. Printing Qualities.—The test for comparison with a standard paper is carried out by printing on the papers under examination at the same time, under the same conditions, and judging the brilliance, solidity of colour, absorption of ink, and noting how the colours dry. ”

“ The whiteness of Linnen, Paper, Silk, &c. proceeds much from the same reason, as the Microscope will easily discover; for the Paper is made up of an abundance of pellucid bodies, which afford a very plentifull reflection from within, that is, from the concave surface of the air contiguous to its component particles; wherefore by the affusion of Water, Oyl, Tallow, Turpentine, &c. all those reflections are made more faint, and the beams of light are suffer’d to traject & run through the Paper more freely. ”

“ Chalky, or chalk-surfaced.—Before being used for printing, paper sometimes has its surface coated with a preparation largely composed of chalk or similar substance: this renders the print liable to rub off if wetted; and, in combination with a doubly-fugitive ink, renders fraudulent cleaning practically impossible.
Cliché.—The ultimate production from the die, and of a number of which the printing plate is composed.
Colour trials.—Impressions taken in various colours from a plate, so that a selection may be made. ”