Letterpress printing has increased in popularity over the past several years. Old equipment is being dusted off and restored to use. My own press dates from 1902. Fonts of metal type that escaped being remelted for scrap are now prized possessions because very little new type is being made and the matrices for casting many styles are long gone, so finding old type is the only option for some styles. Many communities now have letterpress shops where classes can be taken and/or equipment rented by the hour for personal use.

I'm part of the Northwest Letterpress Network that meets in Portland, Oregon on the second Saturday of the month. The group ranges from "grey hairs" like myself with 50+ years of experience to newbies who are just learning the craft and are full of enthusiasm and questions. Usually someone in the group has answers or suggestions. In addition to printing, the group includes those interested in bookbinding and repair, papermaking, and other associated crafts.

I also volunteer at the C. C. Stern Typefoundry / Museum on the third Saturday. The museum has varied printing equipment but the emphasis is to have typecasting machines in operation during open hours with those present who can explain how the machines function.

A slight correction -- the case layouts shown are "News Cases" -- the "lower case" contained lower case letters, numbers, and spacing; and the "upper case" contained capital letters on the right and small capitals on the left and assorted special characters across the top. They were the standard for newspaper text composition.

The California Job Case combines upper and lower case in the same case, with lower case in the left two-thirds and caps in the right third. It's been said the more compact case layout got its name from those who used it on the expansion west to California. It is probably the most common layout in use in the USA today.

These three are just a few of hundreds of case layouts used worldwide. There are cases for fonts containing accents, special characters, up to four sizes of caps, decorative borders, rules, music type, and various layouts unique to many languages. Cases for oriental languages are huge.

Several oft-used phrases also come from printing.

"Mind your p's and q's" comes from those letters being easily confused because the letters are reversed on the piece of type so that they print correctly when inked and pressed to paper. The b's and d's and n's and u's also need close attention when taking letters from or returning them to the proper compartment of the case.

To be "out of sorts" also comes from printing. Each individual letter or symbol is known as a "sort" and thus if you used all of the e's in the case, it could be said that you were "out of sorts." And if there was no backup supply and you were working on a rush job, it would certainly have a an impact on your disposition.

The pizza mantra at our house is -- "No fruit, no fish, no salad."

It used to be "no fruit (pineapple), no fish (anchovies)" then someone came up with the taco pizza. Also I've never figured out the need to drown pizza in ranch dressing.

PDF means Portable Document Format. The file is created using the standard Adobe PostScript command language. Thus it takes information in whatever format that information is provided to it. That may be text (fonts using various formats--PostScript, TrueType, OpenType, etc.), bitmap images (photos, scans of text, etc.), graphic files using vector commands/descriptions, and even other PDF files. Originally the object was consistently display text and graphics on diverse equipment and to control the output of the newly invented laser printers.

The Adobe PostScript page description language (PDL) is VERY complicated and detailed and has evolved over the years to handle new kinds of files and meet the demands of the modern digital world. It was written with the goal of providing a common method that everyone could use instead of each computer maker or program writer creating their own proprietary method of producing text and graphics on their machines or in their programs.

The language itself is licensed by Adobe who also provides a free PDF document reader. However there is a charge for their Adobe Acrobat program that allows creating, editing, and modifying existing files in various ways. It is a costly program for those who only occasionally have a need for it.

Enter the programmers who have tried to create a competitive product -- sometimes they get close but often the interface is cumbersome or wanted utilities are not included or don't work as wanted or expected. It's very frustrating when it seems like everything is in PDF format and it would nice if there was a simple free or inexpensive program to modify the files.

As a longtime printer, I've watched PostScript become the basis for a majority of the digital workflow. I'd hate to count the times or the hours involved with troubleshooting PDF files that were created by programs that didn't quite conform to the Adobe standards. Overall PDF handling and output from mainline programs has improved greatly but as with many situations, "you get what you pay for" still rings true.

I second this suggestion. Once loaded, CutePDF shows up as a printer choice when you hit "print." After hitting "print," you will be given the option of where the file will be stored. It's very fast.

There is a free and a paid "pro" version with extended capabilities, but the free version will probably do everything you will ever need.

https://www.cutepdf.com/index.htm

You must have missed watching Downton Abbey. I wouldn't have known what it was if the butler hadn't been using one in at least one of the scenes.

Come on over to Newberg, Oregon to 99W Drive-In. Most nights an hour or so before the gates open, the line of cars starts snaking down the highway and around the corner at Burger King. When Toy Story 4 opened last summer, the line was approaching 20 blocks long. They packed in as many as they could but turned many away.

Everyone just arrives early, pull out the lawn chairs, and enjoy the evening. Groups like classic car clubs are welcomed and about the only things banned are barbeques and alcohol. We try to support them by visiting the snack bar, especially before the second feature.

A local floor covering store had a sign out front for many years -- we moved here 49 years ago and I can't remember when it wasn't there. It too was the "manual" style with moveable letters and we enjoyed reading them as we drove by. Two of my favorites were, "Sign broken. Message inside." and "Politicians are like diapers ... they often need changing." Then this spring the store closed and the final message was, "THAT'S ALL FOLKS!"

If you do get E-M5 Mark II, I second the suggestion of obtaining a copy of Darryl Young’s book, “Mastering the Olympus OMD E-M5 Mark II” -- and reading it through with camera in hand.

I thought many times, "I'll never need/use that," but have already had a couple of instances where I had discounted my use of a feature, only to go back and review it later and found it useful.

I bought a Olympus OMD-EM5 Mark II a few months ago in anticipation of a six-week (or more) coast to coast round trip beginning September 5th. I have both the 14-150 (28-300 35mm equivalent) and the 14-42 lenses. I like the 14-150 for its reach but the 14-42 is really compact and makes the camera only about 2" thick. So far I have no real complaints and a host of pleasant surprises.

• The in-camera 5-axis stabilization, the "Auto" setting, and the relatively light weight has made it a "point and shoot" for my wife who will hardly touch my full-size cameras.
• It will be just fine for most "walk-about" shots and photos of family that we will be visiting. The "heavy equipment" and tripod will be in the van for stops such as Canyon de Chelly in Arizona — one of my favorite photo stops.
• It's Wi-Fi and computer touchscreen interface has already proved itself as I've started on over 500 closeup and macro photos for a book project.
• Still experimenting with the movie mode.

The menu options are almost mindboggling in their variety and flexibility. I've been able to create some custom presets that have made the closeup work a little easier by just pressing a couple of buttons rather completely resetting things like white balance, sharpness and contrast when I go back to closeups after taking candids at a grandson's birthday party.

Several years back there was a state law proposed that a sticker showing proof of insurance be required. Failure to have a valid sticker displayed on a vehicle in use or in a public place was grounds for immediate impounding of the vehicle -- no excuses were to be allowed.

Sponsors claimed it would cut insurance costs in half by reducing uninsured drivers. But it failed to pass because the insurance industry claimed it was too burdensome to mail stickers monthly for those who paid monthly, even though there was a fee in the bill to reimburse for the cost.

Where we like now in Oregon, you have to provide proof of insurance to get a tag or renewal -- but there is no system to check after that, so uninsured vehicles are a real problem.

CHG_CANON had it right in the first response -- keeping it simple.

1) Open a new document in your word processor.
2) "Insert" the photo into the document and resize as desired. (In Word select the "Insert" Tab then "Pictures" to find the photo you just took on your computer and click the "Insert" key.
3) Save the file as a document or optionally export as a PDF.

Hadn't thought about Mogan-David for a long time -- what was the name of the TV game show that they sponsored in the 50s? They were the only wine company I remember advertising on TV between the beer and cigarette commercials.

As I write this, the red slip-cased manual for WordStar Professional (1979) sits on a shelf about three foot away. I too started using WordStar under CP/M on a "homebuilt" computer. I haven't had the heart to toss it, so it remains as a reminder of days long past . . . just gathering dust.

How many know that the Control-C (copy), Control-V (insert) and other widely used keyboard shortcuts were popularized by WordStar -- before the introduction of the "F"-keys to the computer keyboard.

WordStar essentially owned the word processing program market but were caught flat-footed by an advertising blitz by upstart WordPerfect that advertised that you didn't need to memorize all of the control codes used by WordStar -- just use the newly invented "F" keys! Never mind that you had to memorize what F-key did what to avoid constantly referring to the keyboard templet.

I and many others believed that WordStar was the better overall program but the marketing program worked and WordStar faded into oblivion. I continued to use it for programming long into the MS-DOS era.