Type case

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
For different sizes of letters, like uppercase and lowercase, see Letter case.
Type case
An 18th-century type case, with various tools for typesetting

A type case is a compartmentalized wooden box used to store movable type used in letterpress printing.[1]

Modern, factory-produced movable type was available in the late nineteenth century. It was held in the printing shop in a job case, a drawer about two inches (5 cm) high, three feet (90 cm) wide, and about two feet (60 cm) deep, with many small compartments for the "

California Job Case, which took its name from the Pacific Coast location of the foundries that made the case popular.[2]
These cases allowed type to be compactly transported.

Traditionally, the capital letters were stored in a separate drawer, or case, placed above the case holding the other letters (this is why the capital letters are called "uppercase" characters, and the minuscules are "lower case").[3]

There were a great variety of cases, and also variations in the "lay", or the assignment of the sorts into the compartments.[4] Different printers had different house layouts even for the same design of case.

Notes

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Type cases.
  1. ^ Williams, Fred (1992). "Origin of the California Job Case". Type & Press, fall 1992. http://www.apa-letterpress.com/T%20&%20P%20ARTICLES/Type/California%20Job%20Case.html Accessed online 2 May 2008.
  2. ^ National Amateur Press Association Archived 2007-11-02 at the Wayback Machine, Monthly Bundle Sample, Campane 194, The California Typecase, Lewis A. Pryor, ed.
  3. ISBN 9780226183732
    .
  4. ^ "Type case lay selection". The Alembic Press. Retrieved 1 November 2017.


Stub icon

This publishing-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Type_case&oldid=1172475216"