Pagesetting and Considerations of Data Formats

The problems of manipulating a variety of electronic data formats for the typesetting of a complete page with both text and graphics are addressed. With the proliferation of a variety of scanners, terminals, and recording devices, a major system design problem is the storage and processing time per unit or visual material as a function of the data format. These considerations are highlighted by contrasting a system which uses symbolic data of coded data, to record on traditional CRT pagesetters, to a raster data or facsimile data system which can record on direct plate recorders. The interface between back-end recorders and front-end text processors in the areas of fonts, set widths and line hyphenation and justification is also discussed.