Compugraphic
American company
Compugraphic Corporation, commonly called cg, was an American producer of typesetting systems and phototypesetting equipment, based in Wilmington, Massachusetts, a few miles from where it was founded. This company is distinct from Compugraphics, a British company founded 1967 in Aldershot, UK that specializes in the production of photomasks used in the production of integrated circuits. In 1981, Compugraphic was acquired by European competitor Agfa-Gevaert, and its products and processes merged into those of Agfa. By 1988, the merger was complete and the Compugraphic brand was removed from the market.
Along with AM/Varityper and Mergenthaler, Compugraphic was at the vanguard of what was then considered to be a revolution in the graphic arts: cold type. Prior to computerized typesetting systems such as those manufactured by Compugraphic, typography for magazines, newspapers and advertising was set using Linotype machines, which physically placed metal type forms (not unlike those found within manual typewriters) in line to form the headlines and text of their subjects. This was known as hot type.
The emergence of cold type paralleled the development of web offset presses, particularly for newspapers, in the latter part of the 20th century. The combination of cold type and offset presses dramatically reduced the expense of publishing a newspaper, especially labor costs. Harris and Goss were two companies that led in the development of web offset presses.
The public source identifies “Compugraphic” as american company. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Compugraphic, American and company.
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Chronology, provenance and viewpoint should be read together before a broad social or political interpretation is accepted. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 27, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5157221. VIAF identifies the subject as 138887723. The Library of Congress control number is no2009111160. 1 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1967, 1981 and 1988.
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This entry incorporates text from “Compugraphic” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.