Read Ebook: The American Printer: A Manual of Typography Containing practical directions for managing all departments of a printing office as well as complete instructions for apprentices; with several useful tables numerous schemes for imposing forms in every variet by MacKellar Thomas

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Ebook has 2451 lines and 142936 words, and 50 pages

PAGE.

RISE AND PROGRESS OF PRINTING 13-48

IMPLEMENTS OR TOOLS OF THE ART 49-120

Types--Roman letter--Italic--Black--Anglo-Saxon--Names and sizes of type--Gradations of type--Point System of Type bodies--A Bill of Pica--A Fount of type--Capitals--Small capitals--Points--Apostrophe--Hyphen--Parenthesis and Bracket--References--Accents--Numerals--Arabic figures--Old-style figures--Cancelled figures--Fractions--Signs--Metal rules or dashes--Braces--Spaces--Two-line letters--Quadrates--Quotations--Labour-saving quotation furniture--Hollow quadrates--Circular quadrates--Labour-saving curvatures--Leads--Flowers and borders--Brass rule--Brass labour-saving rule--Improved labour-saving rule case--Earliest written sounds--Hieroglyphic alphabet--Runic alphabets--Anglo-Saxon alphabet and plan of cases--German alphabet and plan of cases--Greek alphabet and plan of cases--Hebrew alphabet and plan of cases--Russian alphabet--Comparative table of bodies of Music type--Music composition--Music cases--Modern conveniences.

COMPOSITION 121-140

General remarks--Requisites in an apprentice--American cases--Position of a compositor--Laying type--Distributing-- Composing--Spacing--Justifying--Head-lines--Notes--Blanking-- Paragraphs--Indexes--Titles--Dedications--Contents--Prefaces-- Signaturing--Errata--Ironical rules--Advice to apprentices--Ironical rules for beginners in business.

IMPOSITION 141-199

General remarks--Tying up pages--Laying pages--Making up furniture--Making the margin--Locking up forms--Memoranda--Nomenclature of sheets--Schemes for imposing, from folio to 128mo.

PROOF-READING AND CORRECTING 200-217

Qualifications of a reader--Should be a printer--Indebtedness of authors to proof-readers--Process of reading--Proof record--Errors made in correcting--Two readers desirable--Punctuation--Alterations in proof--Stower's remarks--Revise--Correcting in the metal--Capricious alterations--Proper method of correcting--Over-running--Hints to authors--Table of proof-marks, with explanations--Table of signatures.

THE FOREMAN OR OVERSEER 218-234

General duties--Treatment of compositors--Punctuality--Morning duties--Knowledge of all materials on hand--Order--Overseeing work--Regulating takes of copy--Prompt reading and correcting--Memorandum--Press-book--Press duties--Warehouse--Casting off copy--Managing hurried work--Companionships--Taking copy--Making up--Dividing the letter--Making up furniture--Imposing and distributing letter--Correcting--Transposition of pages--Rules to be observed in a printing-office.

THE PRESS AND ITS WORKING 235-292

History of the printing-press--Blaeu, its first improver--Ramage press--Stanhope press--Clymer or Columbian press--Smith press--Washington press--Adams's bed-and-platen power-press--Invention of the Cylinder press--Frederick K?nig--William Nicholson--Dr. Kinsley--Applegath and Cowper--Account of the house of R. Hoe & Co.--Stop Cylinder press--Cottrell & Babcock presses--Campbell presses--Richard M. Hoe's type-revolving printing machine--Bullock perfecting press--The Walter perfecting press--The Hoe perfecting press--Presses at the Centennial Exhibition, 1876--Railroad-ticket printing and numbering press--Job presses--Ruggles, Hoe, Gordon, Degener, Wells, and Gally--Franklin press--Nonpareil press--Fire-fly press--Liberty press--Globe press--Peerless press--Universal press--Amateur presses--Folding machines--Setting up a Washington press--Setting up the roller-stand--Composition rollers--Melting kettle--Covering tympans--Wetting paper--Blankets--Making ready a form on a hand-press--Pulling--Rules and remedies for pressmen--Ley-trough--Making ready on cylinder presses--Fine hand-presswork--Printing wood-cuts--Card printing--Gold printing--Bronze printing--Printing in colours--Ink stone and muller--How to use dry colours--How to multiply colours--Contrast of colours--Oiling a press--How to treat wood type.

WAREHOUSE DEPARTMENT 293-299

Warehouseman--Warehouse-Book--Receipt of paper and delivery of sheets--Giving out paper to wet--Over-sheets--Hanging up paper to dry--Taking down sheets when dry--Filling in and pressing sheets--Counting out and putting away sheets--Standard sizes of machine-made paper--Table for giving out paper for a thousand copies.

JOBBING FACILITIES 300-310

Selection of type and presses--How to make a paying business--Memorandum order--Estimate book--Ames's paper and card scale--Le Blond's chart--Cabinets and cases--Rules for the government of a job office--Job composing-sticks--Patent quoins--Corner quadrates--Shooting sticks--Mitering machine--Lead cutter--Perforating machines--Imposing stone--Copy-holder--Paper and card cutters--Megill's patent gauge pin--Extension feed-guide--Automatic counters--Patent ink fountain--Iron furniture.

USEFUL RECEIPTS 311-317

How to make printers' rollers--German preservative for rollers--Directions for recasting rollers--Printers' ley--Paste--Mucilage--Glue--Gum--Magenta surface paper--Coloured writing inks--Fire-proof ink--Printing ink varnish--Lithographic transfer ink--To give dark printing inks a bronze or changeable hue--An ink for marking tin or zinc--Drying preparations--Silvering solutions--To soften leather belting--How to open a ball of twine--To prevent adhesion of paper--To detect ground wood in paper--French gold printing--Transfer varnish--To make paper waterproof--To preserve books--To restore engravings.

ORTHOGRAPHICAL 318-332

HOW TO SECURE COPYRIGHTS 333-335

Printed title required--Application to be made to Librarian of Congress--Style of printed title--Fees--Two complete copies required--Penalty--Notice of copyright to be given by imprint--Form of notice--Penalty for false notice--Authors may reserve the right to translate or dramatize--Form of notice--Original works only will be entered--Duration of copyright--Renewal--Form of application for renewal--Time of publication--Copyright may be secured for a projected as well as for a completed work--Assignments--Fees--Copies or duplicate certificates--Serials or separate publications--Copyright required for each volume or part of a book--Copyrights for works of art--Copyrights cannot be granted upon trade-marks or labels--Fee for registering at Patent Office--Citizens or residents of the United States only entitled to copyright--Full name and residence of claimant required.

THE METRIC SYSTEM 336, 337

TECHNICAL TERMS OF THE CRAFT 338-343

ABBREVIATIONS 344-356

FOREIGN WORDS AND PHRASES 357-372

INDEX 373-383

O, where is the man with such simple tools Can govern the world as I? With a printing press, an iron stick, And a little leaden die. With paper of white, and ink of black, I support the Right, and the Wrong attack.

Say, where is he, or who may he be, That can rival the printer's power? To no monarchs that live the wall doth he give: Their sway lasts only an hour; While the printer still grows, and God only knows When his might shall cease to tower!

ANON.

FOX'S MARTYRS.

MOTLEY'S RISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC, Vol. i, 45.

The American Printer.

RISE AND PROGRESS OF PRINTING.

DISCOVERY OF PRINTING.

The credit of inventing the art which perpetuates the history and achievements of all the arts and sciences has been obstinately contested, several cities having advanced rival claims to the honour of the discovery. This, however, should be no matter of surprise when we consider that the inventor of a new art, unprotected by law, would naturally endeavour to conceal its processes for his own use and advantage. After due consideration, we agree with Isaiah Thomas in the opinion that the probabilities point to LAURENTIUS as the discoverer of the art of printing.

It was of course impossible to conceal the knowledge of an art so useful to man, and within ten years after the publication of the great Bible presses were established in several German cities, in Rome and other parts of Italy, and soon thereafter in France and England.

The Bible was printed in Spanish at Valencia in 1479 by Lambert Palmaert, a German; but so completely was it afterward suppressed by the Inquisition that only four leaves now remain in the archives of Valencia. The first Hebrew Bible ever printed came from the press of Abraham Colorito, at Soncino, in 1488--a very remarkable work. Iceland had its printing-office in 1530, at which a Bible was printed in 1584.

ANCIENT PECULIARITIES.

The pages were either large or small folios, but sometimes quartos, and, the early books were therefore cumbrous and unhandy. Aldus Manuccio, of Venice, was the first to introduce the octavo form.

The leaves were without running titles, direction-words, paginal numbers, or divisions into paragraphs.

The character itself was a rude old Gothic mixed with Secretary, designed to imitate the handwriting of the times; the words were printed so close to one another that the matter was not easily read.

Orthography was various and arbitrary. Proper names and sentences were often begun with small letters, as well as the first words in lines of poetry.

Blanks were left for the places of titles, initial letters, and other ornaments, to be supplied afterward by illuminators, whose calling did not long survive the masterly improvements made by the printers in this branch of their art. These ornaments were exquisitely fine, and curiously variegated with the most beautiful colours, and even with gold and silver. The margins, likewise, were frequently charged with a variety of figures, of saints, birds, beasts, monsters, flowers, &c., which sometimes had relation to the contents of the page, though frequently none at all. These embellishments were often very costly.

The name of the printer, place of his residence, &c. were either omitted or put at the end of the book, with some pious ejaculation or doxology.

The date was also omitted, or involved in some cramped design, or printed either at full length or in numerical letters, and sometimes partly one and partly the other: thus, One Thousand CCCC and lxxiiii; but always placed at the end of the book.

There was no variety of character, nor intermixture of Roman and Italic, which were later inventions; but the pages were printed in a Gothic letter of the same size throughout. Catch-words at the end of the foot-line were first used at Venice, by Vindeline de Spire. The inventor of signatures is said to have been Antonio Zarotti of Milan, about 1470.

Two or three hundred copies of a work were considered to be a large edition.

PRINTING IN AMERICA.

The first paper-mill in America was established near Germantown, Pa., in 1690, by William Rittenhouse.

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