PRINTING AND BOOKMAKING.
 

QUA
 

Q
 

IS the seventeenth letter of the alphabet. It
is one of the most infrequent, and is always
followed by u when there is no abbrevia¬
tion. In thickness it is a little more than
an en quadrat, or about eight-fifteenths of
an em. There is some resemblance between
the capital and the small letter, both having an oval and
a descending tail, but the position in the latter is very
different from that in the former. This capital is the
only one which is a descending letter. The letter is not
found in Greek. As a Latin numeral it signified 500;
with a dash over it, 500,000. As an abbreviation it
stands for quaestor, quartus, quinquennalis, que; Q. TP.,
quo tempore ; QUIR,, quirinaha; Q- R> quaestor reipub-
licae ; D. N. M. Q. E,, devotus numini majestatique ejus.
In English Q, stands for quarter, queen, query and quart.
Quad.—The common abbreviation for quadrat, which
in fact is never spoken of otherwise in the printing-office.
The plural is quads. In England quad, is also used as
an abbreviation for quadruple, and forms combinations
with the names of almost all ordinary sizes of paper.
The period is not then used. Quad royal equals four
royals, 50 by 40 inches ; quad pot, 32 by 26 inches ; quad
post, 40 by 32 inches; quad smalls, cards equaling four
smalls, 7 by 5 inches; quad medium, 48 by 38 inches;
quad large, 9 by 6 inches ; quad foolscap, 34 by 27
inches; quad demy, 45 by 35 inches; quad crown, 40
by 30 inches. To quad out is to fill out lines with quad¬
rats or blanks.

Quadrant.—A small crescent-shaped piece of iron or
steel used for the movement of *the vibrating-roller on a
platen-machine.

Quadrant-Machines.—A small cylindrical print¬
ing-machine adapted for jobbing purposes, made by
Messrs. Powell & Son in England.

Quadrat.—The wide and thick space used by compos¬
itors where there is a large blank. The lower corner of
the lower case is appropriated to quadrats, three kinds
being placed together. The em quadrat is the basis of
computation for all spaces and quadrats. It is a paral¬
lelogram, about three-quarters of an inch high and per¬
fectly square on its four sides. A line is said to be so
many ems wide if so many em quadrats will enter it.
This name is derived from the letter m, which approxi¬
mates to an em in thickness, but it does not appear that
it ever really was of that size. An em quadrat begins a
paragraph in all common matter, separates one sentence
from another when the end is indicated by the use of a
period, begins the second and succeeding lines in most
hanging indentations and is of much use in table work.
Daily newspapers permit spacing as wide as this in case
of necessity. This quadrat is not used in France at the
end of complete sentences, but the period is there fol¬
lowed by an en quadrat or by the space of the rest of the
line. The en quadrat serves instead of the composing
space when it is desired to widen the spacing in order to
justify a line; it is used after a colon and a semicolon,
and also after an exclamation or interrogation, when
these do not make separate sentences; it indicates in
table work the distinction between dollars and cents and
frequently does in other places; on some daily news¬
 

papers, as the London and the New York Times and the
New York Tribune, it is the common space between
words in editorial matter, which is more widely spaced
than the other portions of the papers; and it serves a
valuable purpose in tables, where, being of the same
thickness as the figures, it answers for blanks and justi¬
fication. The larger quadrats are cast in two and three
em sizes. These blank out all break-lines and are used
wherever a space is desired. Type-founders formerly
used to make four, five and six em quadrats, but they
have now abandoned this practice, except to supply
the demand from typesetting-machines and from some
foreign countries. They, with all other quadrats and
spaces, are cast high or up to the shoulder of the letters
which print, for use in stereotyping and electrotyping.
(Quadrats should always be placed at the end of a break-
line, and the spaces necessary for justification should be
next the matter. They should not be intermixed with
quadrats through the line. When a large quantity are
used together to make a blank the two and three em
quadrats should be used interchangeably, the second line
not falling just like the first, so that the jeints may not
come togetlier, and it is also a good practice to turn
around some of the quadrats so that they will bond each
other. Quadrats are made of softer metal, having less
tin and antimony than the other characters. They thus
weigh more, as lead is of a greater specific gravity than
the other two metals and costs less. It is a common prac¬
tice in many offices for compositors to throw all the pi
and broken letter around their stand into the quadrat
box. This is a very dirty habit and ought to be sup¬
pressed by every foreman, A quadrat is always spoken
of in printing-offices as " quad." The whole word seems
too formal. Jeffii^g, which see, is done with em quad¬
rats.    Dotted quadrats are leaders.

Quadrat-High.—Anything, such as spaces or fur¬
niture, made to the height of quadrats.

Quadraten (Ger.).—Quadrats.

Quadrature (Ital.).—Quadrats.

Quadruple.—In English usage, any sheet made four
times the size of a smaller sheet, such as quad demy, &c.

Quart (Ger.),—Quarto.

Quarter Bound.—Books bound with their backs
only in leather.

Quarters.—Many forms are said to be in quarters,
not from their equal divisions, but because they are im¬
posed and locked up in four parts.

Quartino (Ital,),—The four pages of a form which
are imposed together.

Quarto.—A sheet of paper folded into four leaves,
or eight pages. In books it is the size next smaller than
folio, the length being the same as or a little shorter than
octavo, the width being considerably more.

Quarto-Galley.—A wide galley suitable for works
of that size—distinct from slip galley.

Quaternions.—Four pages or two leaves of a book
nested with other leaves to the extent of four, six or
eight, so as to make a section of a book, in the binder's
sense.

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