Typesetting
Typesetting is the composition of text by means of arranging physical types or the digital equivalents. Stored letters and other symbols (called sorts in mechanical systems and glyphs in digital systems) are retrieved and ordered according to a language's orthography for visual display. Typesetting requires the prior process of designing a font (which is widely but erroneously confused with and substituted for typeface). One significant effect of typesetting was that authorship of works could be spotted more easily; making it difficult for copiers who have not gained permission.
Pre-Digital era
Manual typesetting
During much of the letterpress era, movable type was composed by hand for each page. Cast metal sorts were composed into words, then lines, then paragraphs, then pages of text and tightly bound together to make up a form, with all letter faces exactly the same “height to paper”, creating an even surface of type. The form was placed in a press, inked, and an impression made on paper.