電子雜誌-Live互動英語雜誌 2013年7月號 第147期(PDF下載)
Movable-Type Printing—Preserving a Dying Art
保存消失中的工藝——活版印刷
––interview by Mary Chen & Helen Yeh
––written by Helen Yeh
Movable-type printing, invented in China around a thousand years ago, is considered one of mankind’s most important inventions. It revolutionized printing by replacing the tiring method of block printing and made books more available to everyone through its fast and efficient technique. Movable-type printing was the primary form of mass communication until the latter half of the twentieth century, but today, it has become a dying art.
In fact, Taiwan’s only remaining movable-type foundry exists in Taipei. The Rixing Type Foundry, founded in 1969, is a large warehouse with rows of shelves containing small lead blocks. Each block is molded into the shape of a Chinese character used for printing. Rixing has millions of movable types consisting of three typefaces and seven sizes, explains foundry volunteer Mr. Yang. This makes Rixing one of the world’s largest sources of Chinese type.
In its heyday, Rixing Type Foundry filled many orders, arranging individual types based on how they’d look on the page and delivering the grouped words to printers. Workers in this fast-paced environment had to quickly find characters, which are organized on the shelves according to their radicals. An experienced worker could locate around twenty-five blocks per minute, according to Mr. Yang.
活版印刷術大約在一千年前發明於中國，被視為人類最重要的發明之一。它取代了費力的雕版印刷方式，以快速有效率的技術使大家更容易取得書籍，因而為印刷術帶來變革。直至二十世紀下半葉，活版印刷都是大眾傳播的主要形式，而今卻成為一種消失中的工藝。
事實上，台灣唯一僅存的活版鑄字行位於台北。一九六九年創立的日星鑄字行是間大型倉庫，裡頭有成排裝有小鉛塊的架子。每個鉛塊都被鑄造成中文字的形狀，供印刷使用。鑄字行志工楊先生解釋，日星擁有數百萬個活版鉛字，其中包含三種字體和七種字級大小。這也讓日星成為全世界最大的中文字體來源之一。
在全盛時期，日星鑄字行接下很多訂單，將個別的鉛字按照印刷在頁面上呈現的樣子排列，然後將集結後的字送至印刷廠。在這個步調快速的環境工作的員工必須從架上依部首排好的鉛字中快速找到需要的字。根據楊先生所述，一位經驗豐富的員工每分鐘大約可找出二十五個字塊。
《 詳細內文請翻閱NO.147 7月號 Live互動英語雜誌 》
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