Typewriting

“ In other words, typewriting individuality in many cases is of the most positive and convincing character and reaches a degree of certainty which may almost be described as absolute proof. The identification of a typewritten document in many cases is exactly parallel to the identification of an individual who precisely answers a general description as to features, complexion, size, and in addition matches a long detailed list of scars, birthmarks, deformities, and individual peculiarities. ”

“ My classmates, we meet to-night to prove that patient effort on the part of teacher and pupil has not been in vain; that our busy Winter has left us rich in knowledge of this noble art, and that, though oftentimes discouraged in our progress through the alphabet forward through the intricacies of dots and dashes, hooks and circles, and outlines dark and light, over these apparently insurmountable barriers we have reached the height on which our hopes and our ambitions had been centered during our daily pilgrimage toward it. So has it been with typewriting. ”

“ So were the tinted spectacles and the curious voice, which both hinted at a disguise, as did the bushy whiskers. My suspicions were all confirmed by his peculiar action in typewriting his signature, which of course inferred that his handwriting was so familiar to her that she would recognise even the smallest sample of it. You see all these isolated facts, together with many minor ones, all pointed in the same direction. ”

“ If you leave no room between lines, you make it extremely difficult for the editor to write in any corrections in the text. Moreover, a solid mass of single-spaced typewriting is much harder to read than material that is double-spaced. ”

“ Man’s thoughts fly faster than his fingers, and it is only by the “wingéd words” of Phonography that the hand is enabled to keep pace with the mind. Almost inseparably connected with shorthand, is the typewriter.
These two go hand in hand. What a boon they have proved to the busy merchant, the lawyer and the literary man!
To this end, the General Society of Mechanics and Tradesmen, recognizing the growing demands for the use of Phonography and typewriting, added to their already large benevolence a class for the study of these branches. ”

“ Fifty years ago a skilled shorthand writer was rare, and the art was looked upon as a sort of mystery, and so formidable of attainment as to deter all but the most courageous from attempting to fathom its mysteries.
To write the latter extract, the keys and spacer of a typewriting machine must be struck 150 times according to Stenotype; and 344 times according to the ordinary method. To write the same according to Pitman's phonography, 221 motions of the hand or pen are required; Munson's system 195, and Graham's 193. ”

“ It is certainly not difficult to understand why several different patterns of typewriting machines should be invented nearly simultaneously, and it would not be altogether mysterious if, at the first, two inventors had independently reached the idea of a writing-machine at nearly the same time. ”

“ It almost trebles the speed of ordinary typewriting; whilst reading exercises, owing to the frequency of capitals, are more legible than common book-print. To prove this only one week's study of the system is necessary. In the foregoing exercises. the reader, even though unacquainted with shorthand, can see at once, that it requires a less number of motions of the hand to write a phrase by Stenotypy than to express the same after Pitman, Graham, Pernin, Munson, McKe and such inventors. ”

“ The typewriting machine does not always afford an effective protection to the criminal. On the contrary, the typewriting may be a direct means of tracing a document to its source and showing it to be what it really is. This is especially true of typewritten anonymous letters. Without careful investigation it is impossible to say what can be determined from the examination of any particular piece of typewriting, but typewriting can often be positively identified as being the work of a certain particular typewriting machine and even the date of writing can sometimes be found out. ”

“ Dummy smiled at her respectful use of his name and took them into his own hands. “It’s that sport editor,” he mused, motioning to the final paragraph in the story. “I know ’most every one’s typewriting from comparing the proof sheets with the original copy, and he put this extra paragraph on to this story of your brother’s.”
He pointed with a crooked finger. “Typing is really just as characteristic as handwriting. That fellow, Mack, is always in such a hurry that he never holds his shift key down when he typewrites, and the capitals are always a bit above the line.” The man’s face wrinkled up. ”

“ Typewriting is carried on by habits. The habit of writing most naturally formed is that known as the sight system. Recently, attempts have been successfully made to enable the operators to form the habit of writing by touch rather than by sight. ”

“ I assure you that the typewriting machine, when played with expression, is not more annoying than the piano when played by a sister or near relation. ”

“ It offers the readiest means for securing a page of correct reading matter. The mechanical operations are relatively simple. No other process will produce so good a printing surface as quickly or as inexpensively as the typographic method. Serious faults of the original copy, in spelling, use of points, words, phrases, in paragraphing, in spacing of lines, in arrangement of headings, and other errors can be readily corrected in type. The page can be made longer by leading, or shorter by taking out leads. ”

“ This sawing off of a portion of the descending strokes cripples the letters just as the sawing off of a portion of a man’s legs cripples his body. Not only is typography made imperfect by missing descenders, but, generally, the practice has worked toward the degeneration of type print, making it less easy to read, as the lines set too close together. When the descenders are of proper length they maintain a strip of blank space between lines, but when they are cut off the printer must add leads to recover the space—which he seldom does. ”

“ An experienced proofreader does not read a galley letter by letter, but recognizes a wrong type because the natural formation of the word has been broken.
Carrying the experiment further, place in “open formation” the words “Art and Practice of Typography,” and they must be read slowly one word at a time, but group the words closely, as has been done in the lower left of the same Example 508, and the entire group of words can be read practically at a glance. Just as an illiterate person laboriously reads letter by letter, a young child beginning to read will see only one word at a time. ”

“ In other words, there is and always will be a place for beauty in typography, even though it involve a certain loss of clearness. As related to the total bulk of printing, works of this class never can amount to more than a fraction of one per cent. But their proportion in the library of a cultivated man would be vastly greater, possibly as high as fifty per cent. In such works the esthetic sense demands not merely that the type be a carrier of the alphabet, but also that it interpret or at least harmonize with the subject-matter. ”

“ Indeed, the dust of battle has added to, rather than diminished, the mysterious clouds which envelope the problem, and we are tempted to seek refuge in an agnosticism which almost refuses to believe that printing ever had an inventor.
It would be neither suitable nor profitable to encumber an investigation of that part of the History of Typography which relates to the types and type-making of the fifteenth century by any attempt to discuss the vexed question of the Invention of the Art. The man who invented Typography was doubtless the man who invented movable types. ”

“ Here and there a book is printed in France or Germany with some pretension to good taste, but the general revival of the old forms has made no way in those countries. Italy is contentedly stagnant. America has produced a good many showy books, the typography, paper, and illustrations of which are, however, all wrong, oddity rather than rational beauty and meaning being apparently the thing sought for both in the letters and the illustrations.
To say a few words on the principles of design in typography: it is obvious that legibility is the first thing to be aimed at in the forms of the letters ”

“ The length of the register being known in advance and nothing but spaces being used in setting the line, the compositor was spared much that makes composition at once a hard labor and a fine art. The result was an irregular margin at the right such as we now see in typewritten letters.
With improvements in types and typography the squaring out of the page soon came into fashion. In many cases this can be done by the careful use of spaces so as to bring a certain number of words squarely out to the end of the line. There have been printers who have insisted that this should always be done. ”

“ Great improvements have been made in typesetting. Several late inventions largely take the place of the old-fashioned setting by hand. One of these which is much used in newspaper work, and to some extent upon books and magazines, is called the linotype. By pressing the key of the proper letter upon a keyboard arranged something like a typewriter, the letter is pushed down, and when a line of letters and words has been completed, and the words properly spaced, this matrix is pressed down upon the melted type metal. ”

“ Example 316.—The stationery of a book dealer should have a bookish character—that is, the typography should be inspired by the same skill and taste evinced in the treatment of a good book. A well-designed type-face should be selected, and there should not be a great contrast in the sizes used. When it is possible to have two printings, the extra impression could take the form of a simple rule border in color, as on this specimen. The first type line runs almost from border to border at the head, and another portion of the copy is arranged directly under it in three even lines. ”

“ One of the great defects of machine composition is its lack of intelligent, trained craftsmanship in typography. Too often it is the work of machine-thinking operators rather than of intelligent compositors trained to use the machine to increase their product and make it of better effect and worth.
Training in hand composition should be a prerequisite for machine keyboard operation. In no other way can the niceties of typography be so thoroughly or conveniently learned as with composing stick and type case. ”

“ It has been shown that printing, as we now use it, could not exist without types, and that there would be no types if we did not know how to make them in adjustable type-moulds. In this type-mould we find the key to the invention of typography. It is not the press, nor the types, but the type-mould that must be accepted as the origin and the symbol of the art. He was the inventor of p067 typography, and the founder of modern printing, who made the first adjustable type-mould. ”

“ A man lacks something in his make-up when he is satisfied to be rated as a twenty-five or fifty per cent printer.
Tickets, altho only a minute part of the printing-office product, afford opportunity for the practice and development of art printing. In typography there are many themes and styles and their incorporation into type-designs is an interesting and instructive study. The compositor or layout man should know and understand these various styles, that he may be able to adapt himself to any demand made for “something different.” ”

“ In type-making, when a font of type is designed, not only is each letter considered separately, but in combination with every other letter of the alphabet, that when the letters are assembled into words space may be evenly distributed. ”

“ Legibility, neatness, and clearness are the salient virtues of a letter.
The use of the typewriter is confined to business. It is still very bad form to use it for personal letters; but should elegant script and small, clear forms of type, such as are furnished by one or two of the machines now on the market, be in common use, there is little doubt but what the speed of service and the advantages of clearness would bring the typewriter into use in intimate, and perhaps at last into more formal, social correspondence. ”

“ Charles T. Jacobi, of the Chiswick Press, London, as an instructor and writer on printing subjects has done much for typography in England. He is not wedded to a particular style of typography, but advocates the adaptation of any style that is good when by so doing clients are pleased and the principles of art are not violated. The title-page reproduced in this connection is unusual in arrangement. The type groups and the device are all squared and their angularity is enhanced by the exclusive use of capitals. ”

“ With the sample page accepted by the publisher or author, or both, the printer is authorized to proceed with the typesetting. Setting type by hand is now almost entirely superseded by machine-composition, except for the display pages (such as the title) and where the type itself runs larger than the English (14-point) size, this being the limit of the machines. Linotype [37] composition is cheaper than monotype, [37] but as the type is cast all in one line, instead of in separate characters, the cost of corrections is much higher. ”

“ It translates our alphabet into its own alphabet, and then, after processing, it translates it back into ours. Displayed in those stored images which, if in lead, would constitute the contents of the lower and upper cases of the drawers in each typography shop, this literacy is subject to automation.
When we write, we visualize, making our language visible on paper. When we draw, we make our plans for new artifacts visible. The mediation introduced by the computer use does not affect the condition of language as long as the computer is only the pen, keyboard, or typewriter. ”