The American Printer: A Manual of Typography: Containing practical directions for managing all departments of a printing office, as well as complete instructions for apprentices; with several useful tables, numerous schemes for imposing forms in every variety, hints to authors, etc.MacKellar, Thomas
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The American Printer: A Manual of Typography: Containing practical directions for managing all departments of a printing office, as well as complete instructions for apprentices; with several useful tables, numerous schemes for imposing forms in every variety, hints to authors, etc.
MacKellar, Thomas
Graphic design (Typography); Printing -- United States -- Handbooks, manuals, etc.; Printing industry -- United States
The usual rule for note-type is two sizes less than the text of the work:
thus, to Pica work, Long Primer; Small Pica, Bourgeois; Long Primer,
Brevier. Side-notes are usually smaller in proportion. When side-notes or
references drive down below the lines of the text to which they refer,
the expedient of cut-in notes must be resorted to. This is a difficult
part of a compositor’s business, and requires skill and patience to
adjust all parts, so that every line of note and text may have proper
and equal bearing. The reglet or lead between the lines of matter and
the side-note must be cut with as much nicety as possible to the length
of the text, as far as where the note is to run under; and, having
accurately adjusted, by means of the quotations and justifiers, the
situation of the first line of the note, such lead or reglet is added to
the text as will make it precisely correspond in depth with the lines of
note that stand on the side before turning: the remainder of the note is
then set in a long measure, to correspond in width with the text, reglet,
and side-note; and the page is made up with note, or the text begun again
after the note is finished. In Bibles with notes and annotations, in
law-books, and other works, it frequently happens that a page exhibits
several of these alternate frameworks of note and text, which, if done
well, display a workman’s skill to great advantage.
BLANKING.
If the work is very open, consisting of heads, whites, &c., the
compositor must be particularly attentive to their depth; so that though
the white may be composed of different-sized quadrates, yet their
ultimate depth must be equal to the regular body of the type the work
is done in; otherwise the register of the work will be incomplete. The
pressman cannot make the lines back if the compositor is not careful in
making up his matter.
PARAGRAPHS.
The first line of a new paragraph is indented an em quadrate, of whatever
type the work may be; though, when the measure is very wide, two or even
three ems are preferable. By this means the paragraph is more strongly
marked, the indention of an em only being scarcely perceptible in a long
line. Authors vary materially in the mode of making paragraphs. Some
carry the argument of a position to a great length before they relieve
the attention of the reader; while others break off at almost every
place that will admit only of a full-point. But the author’s plan is to
be followed, unless he direct otherwise. Authors should always make the
beginning of a new paragraph conspicuous to the compositor, by indenting
the first line of it far enough to distinguish it from the preceding line
in case it should be quite full.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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