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Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Third-day, March 17, 1868

FromReview and Herald, Vol. XXXI, No. 14

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All About Printing.

Movable types for printing were not used until the 15th century.
Books were printed by the Chinese and other Eastern nations from engraved blocks long before the invention of type.
The first types were of wood. The same material is still much used for the larger varieties of letters.
Johannes Gutenberg is generally believed to have been the first to manufacture movable types.
An edition of Donatus was the first book printed from movable types.
The first letters were characters imitating handwriting. Printing was introduced into Paris in 1470; into London four years later.
Roman type first made in 1465. Italic about the year 1500.
Type founding was formerly a part of the business of a printer, and was declared a distinct art by a decree of the Star Chamber in 1637.
The largest size of type used for books is Great Primer; the smaller sizes are English, Pica, Small Pica, Long Primer, Bourgeois, Minion, Nonpareil, Agate, Pearl, Diamond and Brilliant.
Pearl is the smallest type found in ordinary printing offices.
Agate is the smallest type used for setting advertisements in any American newspaper. It is in favor with those papers, which from their large editions and the great demand for their columns, are necessitated to economize space.
The type in most general use for advertisements is Nonpareil. Those papers which use larger are generally of a poorer class for whose advertising columns there is little demand.
In America printers are paid by the 1000 ems, (M) an em being equivalent to about two letters. In England the matter is measured by ens (n) 2000 of which equal 1000 ems.
A good compositor will set, correct and distribute about 6,000 ems in a day of ten hours. Several of the N. Y. newspapers are printed from stereotype plates which are prepared with great rapidity and melted over for use again in printing the next edition. So rapidly is this work performed that in some instances forms have been got ready for the press in twenty minutes after the last page had been given to the stereotyper.
The hand press was invented in 1450 and is still used without any important improvement in the majority of country newspaper offices.
Ink rollers are made of a mixture of molasses and glue, and were first invented by one Gannal, a glue manufacturer of Paris.
The first newspaper ever printed by steam was the London Times of Nov. 28, 1814.
Hand presses are still used in large offices where very fine and perfect work is required.
The Hoe press was patented in July, 1847, and is indispensable to all newspapers with large circulations.
Phonography was invented by Isaac Pitman, an Englishman, in 1837.