Editing Typewriter (section)

==== "Noiseless" designs ====
[[File:Rapid typewriter, 1890 (Martin Howard Collection).jpg|thumb|Rapid typewriter, 1890]]

The first typewriter to have the sliding type bars (laid out horizontally like a fan) that enable a typewriter to be "noiseless" was the American made Rapid which appeared briefly on the market in 1890. The Rapid also had the remarkable ability for the typist to have entire control of the carriage by manipulation of the keyboard alone. The two keys that achieve this are positioned at the top of the keyboard (seen in the detail image below). They are a "Lift" key that advances the paper, on the platen, to the next line and a "Return" key that causes the carriage to automatically swing back to the right, ready for one to type the new line. So an entire page could be typed without one's hands leaving the keyboard.

In the early part of the 20th century, a typewriter was marketed under the name Noiseless and advertised as "silent". It was developed by Wellington Parker Kidder and the first model was marketed by the Noiseless Typewriter Company in 1917.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Noiseless Portable |url=https://site.xavier.edu/polt/typewriters/noiselessportable.html |access-date=2022-04-27 |website=The Classic Typewriter Page}}</ref> Noiseless portables sold well in the 1930s and 1940s, and noiseless standards continued to be manufactured until the 1960s.<ref name="ja" />

In a conventional typewriter the type bar reaches the end of its travel simply by striking the ribbon and paper. The Noiseless, developed by Kidder, has a complex lever mechanism that decelerates the type bar mechanically before pressing it against the ribbon and paper in an attempt to dampen the noise.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Gould |first=R. T. |title=The Modern Typewriter and ITS Probable Future Development |date=1928 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/41357995 |journal=Journal of the Royal Society of Arts |volume=76 |issue=3940 |pages=717–738 |jstor=41357995 |issn=0035-9114}}</ref>