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I did not think about the fact that lines were set in molten lead before! Did typesetters experience health issues from this?

• jameshart 5y ago
  Yes - I’d heard of ‘hot metal printing’ for years before I actually saw a linotype in action and realized how literal it was. A linotype machine literally molds lead slugs into a ‘line o’ type’ then stacks them up to make a printable plate. It’s hot when it comes out because it was molten a moment earlier. And by lining up those plates next to one another you get columns. Newspaper layouts just naturally fall out of the capabilities of the technology. So much of what we take for granted in computer typography has direct lineage to mechanical linotype concepts - all web developers should have an understanding of how linotypes worked because the machine’s function defines the form of so much of what we expect of typographical layout.