This post is the third installment in a series on how books were made in the 15th-18th centuries. The previous installments describe the process of making individual pieces of type and papermaking.
“Mind your Ps and Qs,” you might tell a child when walking into a fancy shop. Someone might exclaim “I’m all out of sorts!” during a frustrating day at work. Although the process of preparing a text to be printed has changed, our culture retains many idiomatic sayings related to the original process of composition.
Composing a text was among the most technical elements of the printing process. A worker would set the text by plucking the correct pieces of type from the type cases that held different “sorts” of letters. This person, called a “compositor,” would have been among the most educated and intellectually gifted workers within the hierarchy of the workshop; the compositor needed to be able to read well (and read backwards!) in multiple languages and had to possess excellent spatial reasoning skills to arrange the pages.

The compositor would have memorized each letter’s location in the case and needed quick hands to pull type from the cases accurately at speed, similar to a fast typist today. Think words-per-minute.
The type cases were designed with the larger central sections holding the more frequently used letters (such as, in English, a, i, s, and e), and the smaller sections around the outside of the case holding the letters used less often (such as z, q, and x in English). When compositors used up all of the o sorts in the case, for example, they would be “out of sorts” and unable to continue setting lines of type. They would not have more o letters to set until previously set pages had been printed and the letters redistributed back into the case.

Before beginning the process of setting lines of type, an experienced compositor had to review a copy of the text needing to be reproduced. Often referred to as an “exemplar” or “copy text,” this source could be a handwritten manuscript, a printed page, or a printed page with handwritten annotations/changes. During this initial review, the compositor would consider how many sheets of paper in a particular format would be needed to complete the job. This process, called “casting off,” was an important financial consideration because it determined the amount of materials required as well as the labor involved in each unique printing project. The compositor would decide how many words could fit into a printed page and would mark spots on the copy text where page one needed to end, where page two needed to end, and so on.
The process of arranging the type in preparation for printing is called “imposition,” and it was required because of the way that books were assembled. Hand press printers did not print pages in the order in which those pages appeared in the final book. The compositor therefore needed strong spatial reasoning skills to plan the typesetting of book pages correctly.
For a handheld book called a “quarto”, for example, compositors would set type for pages 1, 4, 5, and 8 to be printed on the front of a sheet of paper. Pages 2, 3, 6, and 7 would be printed later on the back of the same sheet. However, the ink on the front had to dry before printing on the back, so the compositor would set pages 9, 12, 13, and 16 before setting 2, 3, 6, and 7.

Imposition is challenging to conceptualize, but here’s the main takeaway: the compositor needed to plan exactly how many words of the copy text would fit on each of these first 16 pages of the new printed edition. Want to try it yourself? Use the Folger Shakespeare Library’s digital printing house to organize the pages of your own First Folio.
In a larger printing workshop, two compositors would work in tandem: the first one would read the original text and mark the expected page breaks as described above, while the second compositor stood at the type case with the first compositor’s page-break-marked copy text hanging in front of him. This skilled worker would pluck individual pieces of type and set them in the “composing stick.”

Typesetting required the use of both hands. The compositor would hold the composing stick steady in the left hand while the right hand took individual letters from the case and ordered them left to right (but upside down, and, remember, in mirror image of how the letters should look) on the tray-like stick. The “nick” in the side of each piece of type helped the compositor to keep all of the letters facing the proper direction (mind those p’s and q’s!). The compositor held the letters in place using the thumb, adding extra spaces when necessary to “justify” the line so that each line fills evenly into a block of text.

Once the composing stick was filled, the compositor would transfer the lines of text into a tray called a “galley” that was about the size of the desired page. When the tray contained a full page of text, the compositor would tie up the type with twine to keep the pieces together, slide the unit off the galley, and continue the process until the entire side of the sheet was set. After adding any necessary headlines or decorative elements, the compositor would lock the pages tightly together within a metal frame called a “chase,” using a mallet to hammer wooden wedges called “furniture” into the spaces between the type set page and the frame. The compositors would then carry the very tightly locked chase over to the printing press. Locking the type securely was crucial, because otherwise the type might move as it was carried, and the force of the printing press or the processes of applying ink using ink balls might later dislodge the sorts or spacers and cause expensive printing errors.
Impatient to learn about printing proper? Don’t get out of sorts: in the next installment of this series, we’ll learn about the process of preparing the press, inking the type, and pressing it into paper.
Sources & Further Reading:
Finkelstein D., McCleery A. (2013). An Introduction to Book History. Routledge.
Folger Shakespeare Library. DIY First Folio.
Illinois State University (2005). Shakespeare in Sheets.
Werner, S. (2019). Studying Early Printed Books: 1450-1800. Wiley Blackwell.
Click here to subscribe to Bibliomania and never miss a post!
Comments
Great overview to remind all of us how laborious the process was, and in many ways how lucky we are today!
Nicely presented with the images, thanks!