page_title: Mergenthaler Linotype Company
section_title: Founding
hierarchical_section_title: Mergenthaler Linotype Company / Founding
caption_attribution_description: English: Mergenthaler Linotype Company 1896 stock certificate.
context_page_description: The Mergenthaler Linotype Company is a corporation founded in the United States in 1886 to market the Linotype machine, a system to cast metal type in lines invented by Ottmar Mergenthaler. It became the world's leading manufacturer of book and newspaper typesetting equipment; outside North America, its only serious challenger for book production was the Anglo-American Monotype Corporation. It also offered phototypesetting and digital products before being taken over by Monotype Imaging in 2006. Since March 2013, its legal name has been changed to Monotype GmbH.
context_section_description: The invention of a machine to replace the labor-intensive task of setting type by hand had been tackled by many inventors during the 19th century. The most time consumed was not in creating the text, but in returning the characters to their proper position for future use. Mergenthaler solved this problem by placing a type mold for a letter on the side of a specially keyed matrix (with multiple matrix/molds available for any given letter). The linotype operator would type in a line of text. The machine would drop each matrix with its mold into place, assembling the matrices into a line of text that was needed. Hot lead alloy was then forced into the molds of matrices, creating the fresh line of type. 
  The linotype operator would then go on to type in the next line. Multiple lines would be stacked into blocks, sometimes paragraphs, to be set in place in the proper column of the page layout. Meanwhile, back inside the linotype machine, the matrices used for a line 
  would progress through the machine, where the special keying system on one end of the matrix, unique for each character, would allow the matrix to drop back only into the correct storage slot, ready for the next use. Another benefit of this overall process was that each edition of the paper was created from a fresh casting of metal, thus avoiding problems of type wear. 
  Another problem Mergenthaler solved was in justifying the type, or ensuring that in a column of print, there were flush margins on the left and right. Hand compositors had previously done this by using spaces of different widths in a line, to ensure that the lines all ended at the same point. Mergenthaler adapted the "space band" (patented by J. W. Schuckers), a device consisting of two wedges of metal connected loosely. When a line of type was being justified, all the space band wedges would be pushed up in two passes to spread the line out to the full measure being cast. The space bands were stored for reuse in a different location from the matrices.
caption: An 1896 Mergenthaler Linotype stock certificate
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