Before Gutenberg invented the printing press, all books were laboriously produced by hand by scribes. Before the 12th century most scribes were monks; later, many lay copiers began to serve the university market. Johannes Gutenberg is credited with ending this labor intensive process with his perfection of the invention of movable type.

Gutenberg's printing press utilized the hot type or foundry process. Each piece of type was cast onto metal called the body. The raised character formed, which was inked for printing, was called the face, from which the term typeface evolved.

For over 400 years all type was set by hand. It was during the Industrial Revolution that major innovations in printing and publishing occurred. Hand operated presses were replaced by first steam presses, then rotary presses. Typesetting by hand was replaced by line-casting machines that allowed type to be chosen, used and recirculated back into the machine automatically.

The next major changes occurred with the first photocomposition devices in the 1940's and 50's. Typeface masters were created on film; the characters were projected onto photosensitive paper and lenses were used to adjust the size of the image.

Next came the computer-based typesetters of the 1970's and early 80's. They were a cross between the photocomposition machines and digital output. Today, digital typesetting is the norm.

Typeface is a term that is now used interchangeably with the word font, although their meanings are not exactly the same. Here is a glossary of common typesetting and publishing terms:

1. Alley-Column margin or the space between two columns of type.
2. Ascent-The maximum distance of a font from above the baseline.
3. Back matter-The index, glossary, bibliography, or appendix that is placed after the text.
4. Baseline-The invisible line upon which text is placed. The bases of capital letters are positioned on this line, and the descenders of lower case letters extend below it. Also called the reading line.
5. Body Copy-Text that is set in one point size and one face, and has a common leading (vertical space) and a common column width.
6. Body Type-The specific typeface used for the main text.
7. Bold Type-Type style used to call attention to text, in which the image is darkened.
8. Column Rule-A line that is used between two columns of type.
9. Copy-All typeset text within a publication.
10. Discretionary Hyphen-A hyphen that is inserted into a word to indicate where Pagemaker can divide the word to fit the text on a line.
11. Element-Part of the layout: headline, subhead, body copy, illustration, or border.
12. Family-All of the type sizes and styles of one typeface.
13. Font-A complete set of characters that share the same typeface, style and size.
14. Font Size-Point size of the type, measured from the bottom of the descender to the top of the ascender.
15. Font Style-Specific characteristics such as Italic, Bold, Bold Italic and Roman.
16. Footer-One or more lines of text that appear at the bottom of every page.
17. Gutter-Inside margins, or space between two facing pages.
18. Header-One or more lines of text that appear at the top of every page.
19. Initial Cap-Large capital letters at the beginning of paragraphs or chapters that are often ornamental.
20. Kicker-A short, underlined phrase that is used to introduce a headline.
21. Margin-The area that extends from the edge of the paper to the beginning of the layout area of the page.
22. Make Up-Assembling all the elements to form the printed images.
23. Overprinting-The process of printing one color over another instead of knocking out the background color.
24. Point-Measurement unit that is used to measure type size.
25. Reverse Type-White characters on a black background.
26. Sidebars-An area of text that is placed at the side of a document, that presents material that relates to the body of the text.
27. Text-The main body of a document.
28. Trim-The final dimensions of a book after it has been cut to size by the printer.
29. White Space-Blank area on a page where nothing is printed.
30. Word Spacing-The amount of space between each word in a line of text.