The complete, locked-up arrangement of metal type, spacing material, and image blocks ready to be placed on the press bed. A compositor builds the form inside a heavy steel frame called a chase, using wooden wedges or mechanical quoins to squeeze everything tightly together. Once secured, the entire assembly can be lifted and moved as a single solid unit without the thousands of individual pieces falling out.
Heard on the job
Help me slide this typeform onto the bed of the cylinder press, it weighs a ton.
Also heard as
- form
- forme