Movable Type - Metal Type Combined With Other Methods

Metal Type Combined With Other Methods

Sometimes it is erroneously stated that printing with metal type replaced the earlier methods. In the industrial era printing methods would be chosen to suit the purpose. For example, when printing large scale letters in posters etc. the metal type would have proved too heavy and economically unviable. Thus, large scale type was made as engraved wood blocks as well as ceramics plates. Also in many cases where large scale text was required, it was simpler to hand the job to a sign painter than a printer.

Images could be printed together with movable type if they were made as woodcuts or wood engravings as long as the blocks were made to the same type height. If intaglio methods, such as copper plates, were used for the images, then images and the text would have required separate print runs on different machines.


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