letterpress printing

letterpress printing
or relief printing or typographic printing

In commercial printing, process by which many copies are produced by repeated direct impression of an inked, raised surface against sheets or a continuous roll of paper.

Letterpress is the oldest traditional printing technique, the only important one from the time of Johannes Gutenberg (с 1450) until lithography (late 18th century) and especially offset printing (early 20th century). The ink-bearing surface for a page of text was originally assembled letter by letter and line by line. The Monotype and Linotype were the first keyboard-activated typesetting machines. Letterpress can produce high-quality work at high speed, but requires much time to prepare and adjust the press. For the sake of speed, newspapers are now printed by the offset process.

* * *

also called  Relief Printing, or Typographic Printing,  

      in commercial printing, process by which many copies of an image are produced by repeated direct impression of an inked, raised surface against sheets or a continuous roll of paper. Letterpress is the oldest of the traditional printing techniques and remained the only important one from the time of Gutenberg, about 1450, until the development of lithography late in the 18th century and, especially, offset lithography early in the 20th.

      Originally the ink-bearing surface for printing a page of text was assembled from individual types by a typesetter or compositor, letter by letter and line by line. The first keyboard-actuated typesetting machines, the Linotype and the Monotype (qq.v.), were introduced in the 1890s. If only a small number of copies is to be made, printing can be done directly from the hand- or machine-set blocks of type assembled in forms, but for long press runs, duplicates— stereotypes or electrotyping (qq.v.)—are made to prevent wear and damage of the expensive types.

      Letterpress was originally carried out on platen presses, in which the paper is pressed against the flat, inked form by a flat platen; later, the platen was replaced by a roller in the flat-bed cylinder press; still later, the printing form was wrapped around one cylinder and the paper was passed between this cylinder and a second, creating a rotary press (see printing).

      Several procedures have been developed for the production of line drawings or reproduction of photographs in the form of halftone pictures by letterpress. The most widely used method of preparing a printing plate for such matter is photoengraving (q.v.).

      Letterpress can produce work of high quality at high speed, but it requires much time to adjust the press for varying thicknesses of type, engravings, and plates. Because of the time needed to make letterpress plates and to prepare the press, many newspapers have changed to offset printing. To combat this trend, letterpress printers have developed printing plates made from a photosensitive plastic sheet that can be mounted on metal. See also flexography.

* * *


Universalium. 2010.

Игры ⚽ Нужен реферат?

Look at other dictionaries:

  • Letterpress printing — is a term for printing text with movable type, in which the raised surface of the type is inked and then pressed against a smooth substance to obtain an image in reverse. In addition to the direct impression of inked movable type onto paper or… …   Wikipedia

  • Letterpress printing — Высокая печать …   Краткий толковый словарь по полиграфии

  • Letterpress (printing) process — Процесс высокой печати, высокая печать …   Краткий толковый словарь по полиграфии

  • Letterpress printing form — Форма высокой печати …   Краткий толковый словарь по полиграфии

  • Letterpress printing plate — Форма высокой печати …   Краткий толковый словарь по полиграфии

  • Letterpress printing press — Машина высокой печати …   Краткий толковый словарь по полиграфии

  • Letterpress — Let ter*press ( t[ e]r*pr[e^]s ), n. Print; letters and words impressed on paper or other material by types; often used of the reading matter in distinction from the illustrations. [1913 Webster] Letterpress printing, printing directly from type …   The Collaborative International Dictionary of English

  • Printing — is a process for reproducing text and image, typically with ink on paper using a printing press. It is often carried out as a large scale industrial process, and is an essential part of publishing and transaction printing.HistoryWoodblock… …   Wikipedia

  • printing — /prin ting/, n. 1. the art, process, or business of producing books, newspapers, etc., by impression from movable types, plates, etc. 2. the act of a person or thing that prints. 3. words, symbols, etc., in printed form. 4. printed material. 5.… …   Universalium

  • Printing press — For the history and technology of movable type, see Movable type. Printing press from 1811, exhibited in Munich, Germany …   Wikipedia

Share the article and excerpts

Direct link
Do a right-click on the link above
and select “Copy Link”