“From Boiling Lead and Black Art: An Essay on the History of Mathematical Typography”, 2017-10-13 (; similar):
[History of typesetting mathematics: handset type using boiling lead for precise layout, then mechanized with the Monotype System for hot metal typesetting, superior to typewriters or phototypesetting but too expensive, spurring Donald Knuth to create TeX to rescue the beautifully-printed math he loved and felt he & every other mathematician deserved.]
…No matter how hard it’s ever been to create printed text, creating printed math has always been even harder. In pre-digital times, equation-laden texts were known as “penalty copy” because of the substantial additional time and expense it took to set math notation for printing presses…I think it’s critically important for those of us that write math to have at least a basic awareness of the history of mathematical typesetting.
For me, knowing this history has had several practical benefits. It’s made me more grateful for the writing tools I have today—tools that I can use to simplify and improve the presentation of quantitative concepts to other actuaries. It’s also motivated me to continue to strive for elegance in the presentation of math—something I feel like my profession has largely neglected in the Microsoft Office era of the last twenty years.
Most importantly, it’s reminded me just how much of an art the presentation of all language has always been. Because pre-Internet printing required so many steps, so many different people, so much physical craftsmanship, and so much waiting, there were more artistic layers between the author’s original thoughts and the final arrangement of letters and figures on pages. More thinking occurred throughout the entire process.
To fully appreciate mathematical typography, we have to first appreciate the general history of typography, which is also a history of human civilization. No other art form has impacted our lives more than type.