A Line of Composed Typedetails

[Picture: A Line of Composed Type]
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Image title: A Line of Composed Type
Source: Blades, William: “Pentateuch of Printing with a Chapter on Judges” (1891)
Place shown: none
Keywords: typography, printing, diagrams, greyscale
Status: out of copyright (called public domain in the USA), hence royalty-free stock image for all purposes usage credit requested
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When the end of a line was reached, and there was no room for more words and yet some space left, the compositor by placing a little extra space between the words made the line fill out the stick. This was called ‘justifying” the line. Each line was lifted out of the stick and placed on a wooden board; thus line after line was added until there were enough for a page.” (p. 52)

The diagram shows a line of (cold metal) type from the side; at the top of the illustration is the part that would touch the paper to make the impression. The shorter pieces are spaces, well out of the way of accidentally getting inked.

Dimensions: 83 x 23mm (3.3 x 0.9 inches)
Filename: 053b-line-of-composed-type-q75-500x152.jpg
Scanner dpi: 2400
Unmarked: You can get a version of this image without the watermark at the lower right corner by requesting it in using the comment link below. The images are watermarked to help people find where they came from if they get reposted to blogs or other sites. Images under 1200 pixels on a side are still free, although I will ask for a donation :-)
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$Id: mkgallery,v 1.27 2012/09/03 22:34:40 liam Exp liam $

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