"Gerald Miller" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 27 Jan 2010 23:58:29 -0500, "Ed Huntress"
wrote:


"Przemek Klosowski" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 20 Jan 2010 21:15:59 -0500, Ed Huntress wrote:

I doubt if there is a working Linotype machine in most states in the
country. I don't know of a single magazine that uses it for anything;
the last newspaper I knew of that used it was over 20 years ago.

There's one in the Baltimore Museum of Industry (geez, R.C.M content).
A retired guy who demonstrates it worked on it in a newspaper, and told
me that they replaced them in the 70s.

Yep, someone else posted a note about that one in the Baltimore museum.
I'm
tempted to stop in there.

And, yes, most of them disappeared in the '70s. I mentioned here before
that
I went to work for McGraw-Hill Publications Co. in '74. I had been hired a
couple of months earlier and they had six Linotype machines operating in a
secondary office. When I started work they had all been moved to the
warehouse, replaced by a Wang computerized phototype ("cold type") system.
That was for promotions and mail solicitations for 26 magazines and
newsletters. The publications themselves were typeset on a much fancier
computerized typesetting system, which replaced another, larger bunch of
Linotypes at about the same time, or slightly earlier. They also handled
the
typesetting for McGraw-Hill books.

Those Linotypes and the multi-million-dollar phototype systems can now be
replaced with a desktop PC and a high-quality laser printer. In fact,
though, the whole system has gone away in most publishing houses. The
writers write on computers; the editors edit on computers; the art
directors
compose pages on computers; and the output is reproduced directly onto the
printing plates. Along the way they'll print out some proofs for
proofreading, color-checking, etc.

From reading newspapers, I suspect that the last proof reader retired
about ten years ago.
Gerry :-)}
London, Canada

I sometimes think that the only ones still employed are working in medical
communications. *Everything* in medicine that might expose a company to
liability -- which is virtually everything -- goes through two proofreaders.
And they're among the best I've seen in my 35 years in the business.

As for the rest of publishing, I think you're right. It makes my teeth hurt
to read expensive books and to find errors, which my old editor's eyes tend
to be drawn to like a pig finding truffles. Sometimes I think they aren't
even using spellchuckers.

--
Ed Huntress