Doug Floyd has worked for the San Francisco Chronicle and Examiner newspapers for 34 years. His responsibility now is to make up the front page each evening for the next day's morning Chronicle. Mr. Floyd wears a green visor to protect his eyes from the glare of the flourescent lights. He is known in the composing room for his steady hand and expert eye. He talks here as he makes up the early edition: "I started my apprenticeship at the ol' Chronicle in 1964. It's been a good job. It pays well. I've raised a family on the money I've made. What am I doing now? I'm working on the three-star edition. The three-star is like a test. You just want to hit the street with it. The five-star is the home edition; it's the one that takes time. The layout gets fancier, with more wrapped text. My experience in hot metal bleeds over into what I'm doing now. For instance I can tell that this headline here isn't going to fit. I'll make a suggestion to the editor about that. But just a suggestion. There was a time when printers had more status. Now they got editors making big bucks to OK a page."

Anita Reinthaler became a printer in Chicago in the late 1960s, when the newspapers were swapping hot lead for computers. A single mother, a staunch member of the International Typographical Union, Ms. Reinthaler says printing "meant everything" to her. "With automation they needed typists and the men simply refused to learn to type. That's how I got in. Being a printer - it was the best possible living I could make, even with a university degree, which really meant nothing when it came to getting a job. And I've always loved words, so it was satisfying, from a work point of view, for that reason. And having the union meant that I had the ability to take part in my working conditions, to complain if things were wrong and to work toward better things. It was all very fulfilling and is now, or I wouldn't be here. As bad as it is - it's more like clerical work these days than the complicated, skilled job it was - in comparison to anything else, I think it's the best still."

German-born Karl Thon got to San Francisco the way a lot of printers did: as a tramp printer. "At one time, in the printing trade, you could 'pull your slip,' meaning you got off your newspaper's employment list and got your 'traveler card,' and that meant you could go to any newspaper anywhere and get work. Like I did. In one year, I worked in 12 different cities. The Chicago Sun Times was a good place to work. Columbus, Ohio, was a good place to work. The San Francisco Chronicle was a good place to work. Miserable places were Denver, Louisville, Kentucky. You would meet people on the road. There was a sense of unity then. Today, that is completely gone. Like lead type is gone. There were some typefaces that were just a pleasure to me. They felt good in my hands. Today, you can do a newspaper on the Mac and you can be anywhere, at home or in a coma."

David Arciniega, a Bay Area native, is in his late-40s, which makes him one of a handful of printers under the age of 60 on the job at the San Francisco Chronicle and Examiner newspapers. He won't be in the composing room for long. Mr. Arciniega is retraining for computer-based ad makeup. It's time to change, he says, because there's nothing left to do on "the floor" but hurry up and wait. "We're going the way of the buggy whip maker. Maybe there still are a few buggy whip makers, and maybe there'll always be a few printers, but certainly there won't ever be 500 printers employed by one newspaper in the city the size of San Francisco. So it's sad ... sad ... the end of an era, the passing of a time that had a lot of tradition. You know, I think the printed word is kind of a mystical idea – and the thought that you're working on a day that hasn't started yet is a mystical idea. It's an idea of hope, that there will indeed be a new day."

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