A book is a literary medium, usually written of several pages folded together and protected with a closed cover. The physical description of this binding arrangement is usually codex. The term, codex comes from the Latin word “codex” which means a covering or shield. It is not uncommon to find codices containing more than one hundred pages. There are many types of books, the type depend on the medium through which they are closed.
The standard book production is for the book to be printed on paper, typically text side and hardcover. Some presses may also include a plastic backing which is referred to as a hard cover, the printing on which can vary greatly depending on the capabilities of the press. These different types of book production methods allow for various book production capabilities. The printing process generally starts with the master or manuscript in an outline form, commonly called an outline. The purpose of this first stage is to determine the layout of the manuscript, which may include deciding whether or not the text should be printed in color or black and white and also deciding the page size.
After the outline has been created, the next step in book production is the proofing process. During the proofing stage, the book production staff checks and double checks the layout, spelling and other writing errors. This stage is also often called the editing stage. One of the most common mistakes made during the proofing stage is the addition and removal of words or pictures from the final manuscript. This leads to the most changes, often affecting the tone and flow of the text.
The twentieth century brought about many new types of printing presses used for book production. The most notable and popular of these printers used for book production during the twentieth century was the rotary printing press, which was relatively primitive when compared to the modern typesetting press. Rotary presses could only prints in one color, using a ribbon in lieu of a colored paper. This limitation caused many early printers to switch to a two-color process, which they perfected with the arrival of the direct printing press.
In the twentieth century, the development of the dot matrix printer enabled mass production of large volumes of text. Originally, the typesetting process was completed by hand with the assistance of a stapler. Dot matrix printers, which were developed in the twentieth century, greatly improved the speed and accuracy of the typesetting process while decreasing the amount of labor required. They greatly reduced the cost associated with book production.
The printing process for publishing the works of authors was completely overhauled with the arrival of electronic typesetting. In particular, the digital typesetting process began to replace the traditional offset printing as the preferred method for mass producing books. As a result of this change, many manuscripts that had previously been typed and bound were sent to book printing presses to be replaced with electronic files. While some presses retained the old offset printing process for producing hard copy books, the majority of presses now produce e-readers that will accept documents that are submitted through the Internet.