What is graphic and text mixed layout in printing design

What is graphic and text mixed layout in printing design

Text image mixed arrangement is the process of arranging text and images in a mixed manner, where text can be embedded beneath the image or floating above it.

Images can effectively supplement textual content. Especially in the current era of image reading, the number and space occupied by images in a book will account for a large proportion. Mixing images and text layout has become a major operation in current typesetting work. In the era of movable type typesetting, images were divided into line and mesh patterns because line patterns were made from zinc plates, while continuous tone photographs were made from copper plates with finer grains.

Once these images are made into a plate, they cannot be scaled anymore. Therefore, this work is usually done by the publishing staff in the publishing house to mark the scaling ratio on the draft, and then a specialized plate making factory produces the plate, which is then taken back to the printing factory to be combined with movable type.

After the emergence of computer publishing systems, images can be scaled freely, and the scaling operation of images is done by typesetters using the same typesetting software and text on the same machine. This allows for image scaling at any time, occupying a size that makes the layout look more aesthetically pleasing. By scaling the image, sufficient space can be left for text layout.

In computer typesetting systems, line drafts and continuous tone drawings are archived in different image formats. For example, in a line draft, a bit map is used to indicate the presence or absence of a picture at a certain point. And continuous tone mapping needs to be stored as a grayscale image, with 256 different shades of gray representing each point. Color images, on the other hand, have the format of color images and are stored in the CMYK color space during printing and plate making. Each point is represented by 256 levels of hierarchy in the four color plates of yellow, magenta, cyan, and black.

These image files can be combined with text in the same typesetting system. After years of improvement, typesetting software can easily complete various ways of mixing graphics and text. Through the WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) function, what you see on the screen is what the output film or printing will look like in the future. Therefore, typesetting can be done by typesetters on the screen to change the size of images and their relative position with text according to requirements.

The main issue to be addressed in mixed text and image layout is whether the text should be placed on the left or right side of the image, as well as the distance between the text and the image. Generally speaking, if the image occupies three-quarters of the width of the page, it can be considered to place text next to the image to save space and reduce blank space. If the width of the image is greater than three-quarters of the width of the center of the page, do not type any more text. Otherwise, the column width of the text will be very narrow and the layout will not look good.

In typesetting software, one type is mutually exclusive between text and images, which means that no text is placed in the layout and no images are placed in the layout. One type is that graphics and text are not mutually exclusive, which means that text can also be placed in the image, and the text and image overlap.

What is graphic and text mixed layout in printing design