Modern print technology - an overview essays

Modern print technology - an overview essays As in almost every other business, technological advances in the publishing industry over the last 20 years or so have seen magazine - and newspaper - production streamlined, speeded up and improved beyond recognition. However, in spite of these advances, many of these basic processes have remained the same. Copy and photographs still need to be produced in the same way - articles must still be painstakingly read, while spreads and advertisements must still be planned and plotted in. And in spite of the advances which have so revolutionised the industry - software which automatically generates articles has yet to be developed. The same is true to some extent of editing, subbing and page layout and design - although we now have tools which accelerate and refine the process, there will always be a need for those with the skills which make the publishing industry such a hotbed of talent and creativity - journalists, artists, designers, photographers and technicians. However, the technology now available means that for magazine production professionals not only has the entire process of getting raw copy into the form of a glossy magazine been radically improved, it's also turned anyone with a PC, a printer and a scanner into a publisher. And that's a very powerful thing. Now, almost anyone who can string a sentence together or stick a piece of copy next to a picture can make a magazine. When the technology now commonplace in the publishing industry first began to emerge in the mid 80s, it revolutionised the industry in several significant ways. Up to this point, magazines and other printed matter were being produced in highly proprietary, laborious and time-consuming ways by skilled print craftsmen. Journalists, writers and editors were only allowed to hand in neatly double typed, paper manuscripts to the printer or typesetter. This had been hand-subbed and marked up to indicate which font to use and what size it should be....