The letterpress demo we did as a class last week was really eye opening. I had no idea that in the past, printing was such an involved and time consuming process. Just setting the type was complex in itself. The use of em-quads to space the text block and create margins required planning that I had never considered. Having to proofread the sentence with it positioned upside down was also mind boggling. The amount of focus that early printing press workers possessed to compose their print successfully is very impressive. It’s easy to take modern word processing features like spellchecking and formatting for granted. I never realized how much time these features save us when writing or editing documents.
In addition to the extra mental acuity required by early print workers, they also needed to demonstrate a healthy amount of dexterity to make it through the day. Handling the composing stick, tracking down specific letters and punctuation in the type-case and transferring the text block onto the printer all required fine motor skills and coordination. At any time one wrong move would have sent tons of small pieces flying. This would have required even more time for pieces to be tracked down and re-organized. Once the actual printing process had begun it was also important to keep hands, hair and clothing away from the rotating machinery and out of the printed work.
The printing press itself was a mechanical work of art. Multiple rollers spread the ink across themselves before coating the organized moveable type. The use of “furniture” allowed for the text to be spaced appropriately before the paper was rolled across, transferring the ink to the page. The machine had pedals, handles and switches that had to be used to print successfully. I imagine that a larger scale printing operation even more complex machinery to operate on a daily basis. In comparison a modern printer seems so high-tech in its ability to quickly and cleanly print, scan or copy. What used to be a high pressure job is now easily accessible and user friendly thanks to word processing programs and laser printers.