After TIME'S presses begin to roll early Tuesday morning, it takes less than 24 hours to turn out the more than 1,500,000 copies of our U. S. edition. This is the fastest magazine printing operation extant. Although this space is inadequate for a thorough account of our printing operation, the pictures and the text below may serve to give you a glimpse of the inky realm of teletype, stereotype and logotype. These photographs were taken from a movie made by Bert Chapman, Manager of Production Operations for TIME, on a recent trip to one of our plants. The movie's purpose: to show our editorial and advertising departments what happens to copy after it gets in the hands of the printer.

Cordially yours,

The machine on the right above is an integral part of the process which produces identical copies of TIME simultaneously in three different printing plants 2,500 miles apart. It is called a perforator unit. It produces (with great speed) a narrow, perforated paper tape which operates like an old-time player piano roll. When fed into batteries of linotype machines, this tape activates the machines into setting type automatically, just as it will appear on TIME's pages. The tape this unit produces was typed out at TIME's editorial offices in New York on a teletypesetter perforator and transmitted to the printing plants by electrical impulse over long-range telephone wires.

The machine on the left above is a teletype printer. It receives a typed replica of the editors' copy from New York to be used as a guide for the printer and proofreader after the perforator unit has done its work.

This curved electrotype plate, being examined before it is fitted on one of the presses, is several steps removed from the linotype. To produce this plate a thin plastic mold is made from the flat page forms, which hold the proofread lines of type ejected by the linotype. The mold is then sprayed with a silver solution, given an electrolysis bath, copper-plated and nickel-plated. That leaves a thin shell of printing surface, which must be backed up and strengthened for the printing press. Hot, molten metal is poured into the shell, which is then rolled into a curved plate and cooled. The rough edges are beveled and it is ready for the printing press.

Once these double-decker presses start rolling at the printing plants in Chicago, Los Angeles and Philadelphia, they turn out 1,000 copies of TIME a minute until the press run is completed. Each press can produce 64 pages in two colors.

These rolls of paper, weighing 2,400 pounds apiece, are a minute sample of the supply that has to be kept constantly on hand in the warehouses to feed the presses. TIME uses 44 million pounds of paper and a million pounds of ink a year. To satisfy the requirements of our high-speed presses, a volatile, fast-drying ink is used. As the paper spins through the press, it passes through big heating ovens which flash-dry the ink almost instantly.

Here in the bindery the freshly printed editorial pages meet the preprinted color pages, advance forms and TIME covers. The collated pages are then carried automatically to a stitcher, which inserts the staples.

Along this conveyor belt the stapled magazines now move to the mail room where subscribers' copies are addressed automatically on a mailing machine from a strip of names, listed by state and city. Then the magazines are put into mail bags; bundles are made up for newsstand shipment. Less than 24 hours after TIME has gone to press, it is on its way to readers all over the U.S.

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