Formulas and tables much more intricate than that of Dennis' PhD, were typeset in metal type and letterpress printed a hundred years ago. It was just so incredi

Formulas and tables much more intricate than that of Dennis' PhD, were typeset in metal type and letterpress printed a hundred years ago. It was just so incredibly much work, that the "generation DTP" cannot even imagine the efforts. I finished my typesetter apprenticeship in 1984. Although we had the most sophisticated fototypesetting systems of the time, we were not able to produce font outlines of arbitrary fonts (we had a few specialised outline font plates, though). To create an outline, I would typeset the desired text, put it on film, make a negative contact copy of the film and then do a series of contact copies of both the positive and negative film with interlayed dispersion sheets to the effect, that the positive would become leaner and leaner and the negative bolder and bolder. When the desired outline stroke width was reached, I would very carefully assemble both on top of each other, take a photo with the reproduction camera and do a final contact copy to a positive on paper. This would typically occupy me for half a day. 2 years later I was doing desktop publishing and it was possible to create an outline just with a click of the mouse and for any font and possibly with custom stroke width. I was presenting desktop publishing systems at trade shows, and once a dude asked me to do this and this and I complied willingly. Then he wanted me to make an outline, which I did, and then he wanted me to put a color gradient on the outline (which was not possible at the time, but shortly after) and I just had to laugh about the presumptuousness of the people that had no typesetting background. But sure enough, DTP would make all this possible in an incredibly short time...