Technology Saturday, September 13, 2003 11

A curved plate (lead) being cast from aflong (printing prepared paper) mouldedfrom the page

Plates mounted on saddles being locked into theprinting press cylinder

A page being made up with text slugs and blocks inside a framecalled the ‘chase’

Operator at a hot metal line (slug)casting machine (e.g., Linotype)

Hot metal (lead) slugsbeing arranged

Repro camera producing ahalf-tone film for pictureblock

A proof being pulled froma page

Page proof mounted on thefacsimile transmitter

Film negative from the facsimile recorder beingexamined

An acid-etched plate(zinc-magnesium alloy)after printing down from thenegative

From the 1930s ... hot metal

Workflow evolution down the years

Photo-facsimile recorder to receiveremote pictures

Paste-up being loaded onto a flat-bedfacsimile transmitter

Text and image bromides being pasted up in accordance with agiven layout

Paste-up beingphotographed on arepro camera

Page negative

Etched plate for letterpress printing

Photopolymer plate for letterpress printing

Offset plate

Laser typesetters to produce bromidetext galleys

Monochrome scannerText input on computer terminals

The 1980s ... photocomposing

Digital camera

Text input by editorial staff

Flat-bed scanner to digitiseadvertisement originals

Full-page film

Page containing text and images being made up on a computer terminal

Imagesetter producing full-page film

Printing down frame toexpose a conventional offset plate

Conventional offset plate

Computer-to-plate (CTP) recorder that permits by-passing the film stage

Digital offset plate from the CTPrecorder

Drum scanner to handle transparencies,negatives and prints

The 1990s ... digital