Speck (figuratively for German

speck Speck can refer to a number of European cured pork products, typically salted and air-cured and often lightly smoked but not cooked. In Germany, speck is pickled pork fat with or without some meat in it. Throughout much of the rest of Europe a ...

or bacon) in the German

typesetting Typesetting is the composition of text by means of arranging physical ''type'' (or ''sort'') in mechanical systems or '' glyphs'' in digital systems representing '' characters'' (letters and other symbols).Dictionary.com Unabridged. Random ...

tradition describes a manuscript that is printed with low effort. The term is still used in electronic publishing.

Background

The usage is related to printing paid for as

piece work Piece work (or piecework) is any type of employment in which a worker is paid a fixed piece rate for each unit produced or action performed, regardless of time. Context When paying a worker, employers can use various methods and combinations of ...

. Manuscripts with a low amount of text, high amount of pictures, free space or halftitles and preset sections were described with the term. They were more easily finished, but allowed the typesetter to earn the same amount as complicated pages with a large amount of new letters. (Compare

potboiler A potboiler or pot-boiler is a novel, Play (theatre), play, opera, film, or other creative work of dubious literary or artistic merit, whose main purpose was to pay for the creator's daily expenses—thus the imagery of "boil the pot", which means ...

for authors.) A typesetter who fobbed off complicated manuscripts on others and preferred "Speck" was called a ''Speckjäger'' (Speck hunter).Alexander Waldow: ''Illustrierte Encyklopädie der graphischen Künste und der verwandten Zweige''. Saur, (Leipzig 1884) reprint Munich 1993, {{ISBN, 3-598-07250-3

References

Typesetting