The process of setting type photographically. to top

the setting of typematter and sometimes other images on film or photographic paper, from a film matrix font or a digital font, as opposed to strike on and hot metal setting.

The method of setting type photographically.

To set type photographically, as opposed to manually or digitally.

Setting type photo-mechanically. Superseded by the Mac.

Phototypesetting is a method of setting type, rendered obsolete with the popularity of the personal computer and desktop publishing software, that uses a photographic process to generate columns of type on a scroll of photographic paper. Typesetters used a machine called a phototypesetter, which would quickly project light through a film negative image of an individual character in a font, through a lens that would magnify or reduce the size of the character onto film, which would collect on a spool in a light-tight canister. The film would then be fed into a processor, a machine that would pull the film through two or three baths of chemicals, where it would emerge ready for paste up.