Editing Duplicating machines (section)

==Comparison of mimeographs and spirit duplicators==

Spirit duplicators and mimeograph machines were competing and complementary technologies during the first half of the 20th century.  Mimeography was in general a more forgiving technology, and still survives in various forms into the 21st century.

Spirit duplicators required much finer operating tolerances and careful adjustments to operate correctly. Overall print quality of spirit duplicators was frequently poor, though a capable operator could overcome this with careful adjustment of feed rate, pressure, and solvent volume.{{Citation needed|date=March 2009}}

During their heyday, tabletop duplicators of both sorts were the inexpensive and convenient alternatives to conventional typesetting and offset or letterpress printing. They were well suited for the short runs used for school worksheets, church newsletters, and [[amateur press association|apazines]].  Even the least technically minded teachers, professors, clergy, and self-publishers could make use of them.{{Citation needed|date=March 2009}} The machines owed most of their popularity to this relative ease of use, and in some cases, to their lack of a requirement for an external power source.

Mimeograph machines predated the spirit duplicator, had a lower cost per impression, superior print quality, finer resolution, and if properly adjusted could be used for multi-pass and double-sided printing. Also, mimeographed images were as durable as the paper they were printed on, and didn't bleach to illegibility if exposed to sunlight, the way that spirit duplicator pages did. A good mimeograph master could produce many more copies than the best spirit master.  As with spirit masters, mimeograph stencils could be saved and reused for later print jobs.

There are still mimeography enthusiasts in the United States and Canada, and mimeograph technology is still in everyday use in the [[Third World]], since many low-cost mimeograph machines do not require electricity to operate.