Development in printing and related technologies

Abstract

For almost as long as man has had language he has attempted to transmit his thoughts to those with whom he cannot communicate in speech, whether because of time or space—first by using pictures, then with words. Long before the invention of printing as we know it, he learned that to produce copies of his graphic images it was more efficient to separate copying from writing and more efficient still to separate the copying of illustrations from the copying of words. The relationships between these functions have changed many times over the centuries, but even now we separate the author (and/or publisher) from the printer and—at least until very recently—we separated the typesetter from the reproducer of illustrations. Two of the major implications of current developments in technology are that these traditional divisions of labour are about to be rendered obsolete.