Lower composition costs through optical scanning and photocomposition

Twelve years ago it became apparent to the management of the Mack Printing Company that technological improvements had to be made in the craft of composition. Continued reliance on the traditional high-labor-intensive monotype system would not be acceptable when considered in relation to the scientific and technical community. In this paper the evolution of cold-type composition to the present “state of the art” at Mack is traced. How the system functions and interacts with the journal publisher is shown, and the total systems approach outlining the hardware and the software development is explained. Also discussed are the objectives of Mack Pointing Company for future enhancements to the system and the ability of the present system to create a database for the generation of periodic indexes. Comparison and evaluation of this approach as it relates to economy, flexibility, speed, and quality of typesetting can readily be made.