matrices in moulds made of softer materials than copper such as sand, clay, or punched lead. One solution to the problem in the early nineteenth century was William Caslon IV's riveted "Sanspareil" matrices formed by cut-out from layered sheets. The problem was ultimately solved in the mid-nineteenth century by new technologies, electrotyping and pantograph engraving, the latter both for wood type and then for matrices. From the nineteenth century additional technologies arrived to make matrices. The first was electrotyping from the 1840s, which forms a copper matrix around a pattern letter by electrodeposition of copper. The advantage of electrotyping was that the pattern letter did not have to be out of hard steel, so it could be cut in soft lead alloy much faster than a punch could. This allowed an explosion in the number of display typefaces available. It also allowed printers to form matrices for types for which they did not have matrices, or duplicate matrices when they had no punches, and accordingly was less honourably used to pirate typefaces from other foundries. The technology was most commonly used for larger and more esoteric display typefaces, with punched matrices preferred for body text types. An additional technology from the 1880s was the direct engraving of punches (or matrices, especially with larger fonts) using a pantograph cutting machine, controlled by replicating hand movements at a smaller size. Duplexing A duplexed matrix with two sites for casting letters was common on Linotype machines. By switching the position of the matrices in the machine it was easy to switch between casting two styles in the same line, the characters of which would have identical width. A common combination was regular and italic for printing body text, or regular and bold as with Metro, but Linotype also offered more unusual combinations, such as a serif text face duplexed with a bold sans-serif for emphasis. See also Font History of western typography Digital print matrix References Typography Printing