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==History== {{Main|History of Western typography}} [[File:Friedlaender.webmsd.webm|thumb|Israeli typographer [[Henri Friedlaender]] examines ''Hadassah Hebrew'' typeface sketches. The sequence was shot in his study in [[Motza Illit]] (near Jerusalem) in 1978.]] Type foundries have cast fonts in [[lead]] alloys from the 1450s until the present, although wood served as the material for some large fonts called wood type during the 19th century, particularly in the [[United States]]. In the 1890s, the mechanization of typesetting allowed automated casting of fonts on the fly as lines of type in the size and length needed. This was known as continuous casting, and remained profitable and widespread until its demise in the 1970s. The first machine of this type was the [[Linotype machine]], invented by [[Ottmar Mergenthaler]].<ref>{{Cite web|date=2019-06-30|title=Science history: the Linotype machine|url=https://cosmosmagazine.com/technology/science-history-the-invention-of-the-linotype-machine/|access-date=2020-11-09|website=Cosmos Magazine|language=en-AU}}</ref> During a brief transitional period ({{Circa|1950s}}β1990s), photographic technology, known as ''[[phototypesetting]]'', utilized tiny high-resolution images of individual glyphs on a film strip (in the form of a film negative, with the letters as clear areas on an opaque black background). A high-intensity light source behind the film strip projected the image of each glyph through an optical system, which focused the desired letter onto the light-sensitive phototypesetting paper at a specific size and position. This photographic typesetting process permitted optical [[scaling (geometry)|scaling]], allowing designers to produce multiple sizes from a single font, although physical constraints on the reproduction system used still required design changes at different sizes; for example, [[ink trap]]s and spikes to allow for spread of [[ink]] encountered in the printing stage. Manually operated photocomposition systems using fonts on filmstrips allowed fine [[kerning]] between letters without the physical effort of manual typesetting, and spawned an enlarged type design industry in the 1960s and 1970s.{{citation needed|date=December 2014}} By the mid-1970s, all of the major typeface technologies and all their fonts were in use: letterpress; continuous casting machines; phototypositors; computer-controlled phototypesetters; and the earliest digital typesetters β bulky machines with primitive processors and CRT outputs. From the mid-1980s, as digital typography has grown, users have almost universally adopted the American spelling ''font'', which has come to primarily refer to a [[computer file]] containing scalable outline letterforms (''digital font''), in one of several common formats. Some typefaces, such as [[Verdana]], are designed primarily for use on [[computer screen]]s.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.dmxzone.com/go?6669 |title=Interview with Virginia Howlett, mother of Verdana |publisher=Dmxzone.com |date=2004-06-24 |access-date=2013-09-21}}</ref>
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