Cutting A Gestetner Stencil
| Field | Office Work |
| Went Obsolete | late 1970s |
| Made Obsolete By | Photocopiers |
| Knowledge Assumed | Operation of a typewriter |
| When useful | Making multiple copies of a document, more that could be made by carbon paper |
A Genstetner machine was used for small scale publishing of documents. A stencil was loaded into the machine and ink was forced through holes in the stencil onto paper. Small machines were hand cranked. Larger ones had motors.
A small number of copies of a document could be made with a typewriter and carbon paper. For a larger number of documents, a master copy was prepared on Genstetner stencil page. Holes were cut in the page, usually using a typewriter with the ribbon removed. Holes could also be cut by hand if you had the requisite skill. Like all stencils, it was necessary to leave enough material to hold the centre of cut out areas. Letters on a typewriter would usually not cut fully through the paper leaving enough material to hold the centre of letters like a and o. Sometimes the centre would fall out and the letter would be filled-in when printed.
Typing mistakes could be corrected with a correcting fluid that would fill in the cut out portion, allowing the text to be typed over. This was time consuming and good typing skills were necessary to complete documents quickly.
