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Originally an American company, formed in 1886 to market the linecaster invented by Ottmar Mergenthaler, Mergenthaler Linotype became the world's leading manufacturer of book and newspaper printing equipment. Only the United States/ England based Monotype seriously challenged it outside North America in book production.Linotype GmbH, the German office of the company, was to become the dominant offshoot. Through a relationship with the typefoundry D. Stempel AG (a company that was gradually acquired entirely), many of the 20th century's best typefaces became its best-known — designs such as Optima and Palatino.
The company, as so many in the printing industry, endured a complex post-war history, during which printing technology went through two revolutions — first moving to phototypesetting, then to digital .
Now called Linotype Library, it is a subsidiary of the printing manufacturer and former rival, Heidelberger Druckmaschinen AG . The historic printing machinery being little more than museum pieces, the modern Linotype assets consist of a large library of type designs and trademarks, many the result of its large number of acquisitions, which it exploits by manufacturing digital typefaces. It frequently brings out new designs from established and new type designers.
See also: Linotype machineIn printing, the Linotype machine uses a 90- character keyboard to create an entire line of metal type at once. This allows much faster printing than with the Gutenberg-style system, in which operators place down one letter, punctuation mark or space at a
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