answersLogoWhite

0

You asked the question in the typography category, about the computer phenomenon of 'what you see is what you get'.

Before WYSIWYG, printed results on a page never looked like the video screen text. This made printing a rather unsettling exercise, since you were forced to adjust the text by trial and error. All typesetting for printing in magazines, newspapers and so forth was done by workers using machines called Linotypes. These machines functioned like typewriters, but set metal plates with type, which were then photographed, turned into photographic negatives, and then printed on industrial, commercial printers.

With the announcement of PostScript and the first typesetting product based on it, PageMaker from Aldus Corporation in the mid 1980s, a page designer could control the type style, leading, margins and more just by dragging 'edges' of type on an image visible on a computer monitor.

Then, using a PostScript printer, the page designer could produce photographic negatives from imagesetters, a type of computer printer. These negatives were then sent to the industrial printers for paper print production.

WYSIWYG made desktop publishing possible, and over time eliminated the need for both Linotype machines and the enormous photographic setups required to produce printing negatives.

User Avatar

Wiki User

15y ago

What else can I help you with?