photocompositionn.
/ˌfəʊtəʊkɒmpəˈzɪʃn/, U.S. /ˈˌfoʊdəˌkɑmpəˈzɪʃ(ə)n/ Printing. Now chiefly historical.
The setting of matter for printing by projecting it on to photographic film from which the printing surface is prepared; filmsetting. Also: the manufacture of printing plates directly from photographic images.
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society > communication > printing > preparatory processes > composing > [noun] > composing on a machine > photocomposing
photocomposing1926
photocomposition1929
phototypesetting1931
filmsetting1954
photosetting1958
1929 N.Y. Times 30 Jan. 11/1 (heading) Publisher..tells of a photo-composition machine that will do away with metal composition.
1957 E. Linklater Private Angelo 238 (colophon) Of this book, first published by Jonathan Cape in 1946, two thousand copies were printed at Christmas 1957 for Sir Allen Lane and Richard Lane... The book was composed entirely without metal type: it is the first to have been produced in Great Britain by means of photocomposition.
1968 A. Bluhm Photosetting i. 3 These two terms [sc. photosetting and filmsetting], and also photocomposition and phototypesetting, are all currently used to mean exactly the same thing, namely the composition of letters and symbols by photographic exposure from a set of transparent master characters for subsequent reproduction by any printing process.
1977 Times 14 May 1/2 The plans also involve..Fleet Street production by the new technology of photocomposition.
1998 M. Twyman Brit. Libr. Guide to Printing: Hist. & Techniques 81 The demise of photocomposition was even faster than that of hotmetal composition, and during the 1980s and first half of the 1990s it was almost entirely replaced in technologically advanced countries by digital methods.
2002 Folio (Nexis) Apr. Eventually, film will take its place beside photocomposition type masters in the annals of printing antiques.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, March 2006; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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n.1929