TYPELESS NEWSPAPERS

Hokitika Guardian, 13 January 1920, Page 4

TYPELESS NEWSPAPERS

Since October 1, Mr George H. Doran the famous American publisher, stated, not a new book has been published in New York, nor has any magazine oi- periodical of importance left the press. The cause is a strike of printers, compositors,- and pressmen in the metro politan district. How one great journal, the literary Digest (Funk. and Wagualls Company) surmounted the difficulty and did not miss a single weekly issue is one of the romances, as it is one of the technical wonders, of the printing craft. It did so by eliminating what has hitherto been the costliest operation in magazine publication, the typesetting. This marvel was accomplished by having all written matter for the Literary Digest type-written in column form. Then the typewritten columns wore photographed, and from the photographs printing plates were made. These plates were then used, exactly as ordinary photographic plates are used for illustration purposes, and the whole edition of the journal, amounting to 1,000,000 copies, was successfully turned out. Numbers of the Literary Digest for October 18 and 25 and November 1 have reached London. All of them are "type-photographed.” They present an amazingly satisfactory appearance. As the management itself proclaims, “The whole future of magazine publication may bo revolutionised" by the triumphant innovation. There seems to be no valid reason why there should not ho "type-photographed” books, or even newspapers. A glance down the columns of the mcw-4tylfe journal ireveals of course, a certain raggedness as compared with the perfectly spaced columns of a periodical printed in the ordinary way. Everybody familiar with a type-writ-ten letter knows how the various lines do not end, on the right hand side, at exactly the same place. The Literary Digest columns present, therefore, the aspect of a well-typewritten letter or document. Words which would he italicised in the ordinary way are underlined-.

Owing to the extraordinarily large amount of matter packed into tho journal’s informative columns, a small .size of typed letting was selected—tho journal, with advertising contains 80 pages. This makes the "print” rather close, but it does noli greatly detract from tho clearness and legibility of each page. . . Descriptions wider photographs are "typo photgraphed” like reading matter. Advertisements, having been furnished ready for publication by advertisers in plate formes, appear in tho usual style. We have quite evidently not emerged from tho ago of miracles in tho printing arts. Certainly tlio Literary Digest, which, in consequence of particularly astute editorial direction, enjoys great and deserved popularity throughout tho United States, iff to bo congratulated

upon having inaugurated a splendid and complete departure. It will, as the editors observe, “at least furnish the basis foi{ many other experiments” along kindred lines.