In the Days Before Ink Cartridges

One has to be at least of a certain age in order to recall the days before the inkjet printer, ink cartridges and clean, effortless colour photocopying came along.

Anything that was more sophisticated than a poor quality, inky, smudgy black and white photocopy or a foul-smelling duplicate rolled off from what resembled a domestic mangle needed to be printed off from a full-blooded printing press, however few copies one required.  And that was a military operation.

First of all an original had to be designed.  The text would be fed into a typesetting machine which would provide right-sided justification as well as left-sided.  When the typeset text was run off in strips of the required width it would be cut with scissors or a sharp knife.  Any spelling mistakes or typographical errors would need to be rectified by printing off the corrected word or words and pasting them carefully over the erroneous text.  The finished columns of text would then be glued onto a master over an illuminated "light table", using the reverse side of a sheet of graph paper to ensure that it adhered rigidly to a straight line.

When all the text had eventually been pasted up it was time to add the header.  Again graph paper would be used over a light table to ensure that a straight line was maintained.  The heading would be added character by character, using a biro and rub-down transfer lettering which would have been purchased by the (very expensive) sheet from a stationer.  Each new font or character size required a different packet of lettering, which could be used only once.