Gutenberg
Read about the man.

History
History (or how did we get into this mess?)

Sad Realities
Believe half of what you read, and none of what you hear

Unfortunately, anyone could become a typesetter

Also, anyone could become a writer

Conclusion
The webmaster can't catch them all.  You need outside help!.

Side Line
Up until recently, the professionals have been responsible for all published text.

Fact
Business Fact: Americans typically shun products with broken English

History (or how did we get into this mess?)

1970s

In the 1970's, text that was published (or that was displayed as published text), was typeset.  Making changes after text was typeset was expensive so text was very carefully proofread, again, and again, and by humans.  The word processing software they used was limited in comparison to today's standard.  All spell checking and proofreading was performed by someone with a keen eye.  While checking for spelling, the other errors were found.  The text to be typeset was examined by a professional beforehand as correcting errors would be expensive once printed.  Today we have more sophisticated software but it does not compare to the human eye's ability to find the errors.

By the late 70's, microcomputers were taking off, even with few standards on operating systems and programs.  Already, software companies were developing programs for word processing.  In the early 80s, IBM introduced the IBM PC and it had a standardized operating system.  This was significant because a large company was offering what was previously a microcomputer (usually a hobbyist machine).  A standardized operating system made the job of software developers a lot easier.  Still, not many documents were "published" using the somewhat common Diablo® printer, a "type-ball/spinning disc" printer that could print letters as sharp as the IBM Selectric® typewriter.  Being that the range of typefaces and sizes were limited, it was not the same as typeset pages.  More common, was the dot-matrix printer, at the time using a 7x9-grid pattern, hardly comparable to the slick paper print found in magazines.  So of course, even fewer "published" documents came from the dot-matrix printer.

Then something changed.  A typesetting program for the PC emerged that married the word processing ability of the most popular word processing program (WordStar) with the graphics mode of dot-matrix printers to create letters of any size, even a full page tall.  The program was called LePrint™ and initially sold for a mere $375.  This put typesetting abilities in the hands of the common everyday computer user.

Dot-matrix printers from the Orient started having 18, then 24 pins (to better print Japanese kanji characters).  Resolutions were up to 360x360 dpi.  The print head wires were smaller, and produced sharper print then the 9 pin (wire) printers.

Canon introduced a laser printer engine that was used in HP and Apple laser printers.  Because the dot size was much smaller than dot matrix printers, the printed text was sharper in comparison with dot-matrix standard size characters.  A built-in typeface cartridge produced sharp letters at 300x300 dpi but was limited in the size of the characters.  Characters were fixed bitmap images and were therefore not scalable.  Graphics mode was limited to 75x75 dpi, preventing programs such as LePrint™ from taking full advantage of the small dots made by the laser printers.  Advances in memory "add on" controller boards, more laser printer memory, and specially built laser printers, all helped solve the earlier memory problems for programs such as LePrint™.

Typesetting itself was improving.  The UNIX based TeX™ (and still popular) worked specifically with typesetting equipment.  Other PC based programs joined the typesetting revolution, some were much simpler than LePrint™ and used the "Hershey" character set (previously used only on plotters), while others took to the big time incorporating their own word processing abilities but reduced ease of use (Ventura Publisher).  People had to learn something new, a lot different from specifying a typeface and size to print a simple WordStar document.  Regardless, the do-it-yourself typesetting bug had caught on and there seemed to be no limit to what could be charged for a PC based typesetting program.

WYSIWYG (wizzy-wig, What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get) was just starting but difficult to implement given the limited graphics abilities of the display monitors.  Word Processing programs were helped along drastically by the introduction of Microsoft's Windows for Intel based PCs and Apple's Macintosh.  The GUI (Graphics User Interface) made computers even more user-friendly and practically demanded the way for WYSIWYG be paved with smooth concrete.  The biggest step however, was when TrueType typefaces were introduced.  Developed by Apple and adopted by Microsoft, TrueType allowed typefaces to be scaled to over an inch high, which took care of most of the PC based typesetting needs.  Programs such as LePrint™, which had already offered any size of type, lost ground due mostly to still being tied to the DOS based WordStar word processing program.  LePrint™ adopted other word processing programs too late in the game and eventually faded from view.  The surviving software programs either fell into word processing or serious typesetting.

"Believe half of what you read and none of what you hear"

I was there, I saw this great evolution take place, and I noticed something change.  Previous to all of this, when you saw something printed in "published" format, it was the gospel truth!  People who did true typesetting on dedicated typesetting machines were educated in the English language, caught, and corrected most of our errors.  Mistakes were few and far between by the time it was published.  With the "believe half" saying in the back of your mind, you still could (pretty much) trust what you read if it was typeset as pretty much all published text was.  Most publications were ethical.^†

Unfortunately, anyone could become a typesetter

With the introduction of PC based typesetting, things changed drastically.  Now, anyone with a PC could "publish" his or her own works.  There was the initial tendency to believe what we read if it was in "published" or "typeset" format.  Unfortunately, that got us into a lot of trouble.

Software publishing companies were inundated with the demand for typesetting-like abilities from the word processing programs.  Along with the programs comes some education, help text, and documentation to help the new users.  Too often, the educational information passed on to the new users was wrong.  It was new to the people who had to write about it.  Many misunderstood the new technology when it was explained to them so they wrote about it wrong.  Terminology and definitions changed almost overnight ‡  Readers "trusted" typeset like print even though it was now being written by people trained in writing skills but not necessarily the specific area they were writing about.  Soon, even people who weren't even trained in writing skills were publishing "typeset" looking text.  It soon became clear that you could no longer trust text when it had that typeset look because you couldn't tell where it came from or the skill level of the writer.  It wasn't a change of ethics, the writers were still ethical, only that they were less skilled to be publishing than what we had become accustomed to previously.

Also, anyone could become a writer

This advent of electronic communication meant that anyone could write an article and send it to a major magazine, eliminating the need to have the article typed in and more thoroughly proofread.  Some apparently never got reviewed before going to print.  As a result, many errors populated in print to the degree that it was a headache to read some "published" works.  It was often difficult to understand what the user intended due to typos, spelling errors, misused, misplaced, and left out punctuation.

Actually, this last stage of "typesetting" abilities exists today, only now, the medium has become the Internet.  Previously, a much smaller audience saw the mistakes made.  No longer! (See the sidebar)

Conclusion

Spelling programs have been around since the 70’s.  Incorporating them into the word processing programs themselves was a tremendous help.  To a lesser degree, grammar checkers have helped too.  Still, the software is usually not smart enough to catch every error.  If a word is an entry in the dictionary, then it is considered spelled correctly.  Now the grammar checker takes over but often misses the sentences with words that qualify as being spelled correctly but are not the words intended.  These errors are too often found and laughed at by the end users, i.e., your customers.  Of course, this cannot happen….it must not….but it does.  The webmaster can’t catch them all.  You need outside help!.

Be sure to read other pages in this series:

Proofreading (Page 1)
Future (Page 3)
Americans shun products with broken English (Page 4)

For any of these issues, please send e-mail.

Satellite Dish
The age of true global Internet connections is upon us... 

Without the help of satellites, radio waves do not easily travel around the world, same for TV.  Even if they could, there is a language barrier.  Improved technology is solving this problem but it isn't quite there yet.  Real time automatic language translation will be wonderful when it arrives.

Up until recently, the professionals have been responsible for all published text.

Not too long ago, the majority of worldwide communication was between people who knew each other, or in business types of communication.  This includes radio and TV, which could be considered in the professional realm of things.  Professionals for these jobs were hired for their ability to communicate.

Before the PC became commonplace, most published text was distributed locally to the people who read and understood the same language.  The text was rarely seen by anyone that used a different language.  Publications sent to a foreign country were translated by professionals and the original documents were written by professionals.

There is now a new problem, when we get to the point where the masses can publish (the non professionals, if you will), we start to show our ignorance, or lack of skill set that was previously a necessity to perform these tasks.  Originally, we were the ones that created the original draft that was corrected, typeset, proofread, and then published.

Anything published on the Internet, means the entire world has access to it.  Only now, non-professionals are doing it.  Common everyday, you and I people have been let loose on a computer to say what we will as if we had the ability to say it well.  Only now, no one is doing the proofreading.

Flat out, most people don't have the ability, and can't say what they mean very well and prove it over and over.  Most don't have the background, the education, and the skill set that was once required to do such things.  In other words, they don't have the qualifications that would get them hired to do those tasks in the seventies but now do it because the tools became available.  It doesn't mean that the result is as high a quality as it was previously however.

The job still has to be done.  Another set of eyes can see things that were missed.  Almost anyone can catch other's typographical mistakes.  The difficulty is that person may not have the ability to recognize other mistakes that could be made.  Therefore, most need outside help to finish the job off.

Let us help you eliminate errors on your website or in your publications.