Unit 9 Printing Processes

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 529.

In the past, the journalist typed his story on any old manual typewriter and then the story was cast in metal by a compositor. This was followed by another slow and laborious step — the type, that is the metal type, was checked and corrected before the pages were made up in metal by the printers. Finally the completed page was cast in metal ready for the printing press.

Well now we're at a sort of interim stage — not completely computerised but getting there — the journalist still types his story on a typewriter — it might be an electronic one! But the story is then re-typed by a compositor into the main computer. The computer sets the type photographically onto paper before the individual articles are pasted onto the pages. Finally the pages are photographed and plastic plates are produced for the press.

The next step, as you've probably guessed, is to computerise the whole process. The journalist will type his story onto a computer terminal — sometimes called a VDU (Visual Display Unit) and this will be sent directly to the computer.

Once again the computer will set the type onto photographic paper before the page is designed and made up on the terminal by journalists. Finally the computer will produce the page and plastic plates will be made ready for printing.

Well, that's what's planned. Any questions?