Matthias Rauscher. drei Jahrzehnte Autologic Information International und Agfa Graphics Germany als Technischer Angestellter, Grafische Druckindustrie mit dem Schwerpunkt Global Services Newspaper Support.

Vierjähre Arbeit am MEPS-Projekt in USA und Europa (1982)

Multilanguage Electronic Phototypesetting System

Multilanguage Electronic Phototypesetting System (MEPS, also called Multilanguage Electronic Publishing System) is a system for offset printing in a variety of languages and character sets. The system, completed in 1986, was designed by a Bible Printing Company.

The  Bible Printing Society has printed Bible literature in various languages. Before MEPS there was no system available for printing in all languages, due largely to the economies of many countries where production of literature in their languages was not financially viable. The MEPS program, which is capable of correctly laying out different languages with different character sets, was created with this problem in mind. The program was designed based on responses from the organization's own translators about each language.

History

In January 1978, printing operations at the Bilbe printing society's headquarters in Brooklyn, New York were upgraded from letterpress printing to lithographic offset presses (later replaced by the faster photolithographic process). A decision was made in 1979 for the Society to create its own phototypesetting system rather than relying on commercial equipment. In the same year the Computer Farm, Wallkill, New York, began designing and constructing the necessary phototypesetters, computers and terminals, in addition to the MEPS software. The system was completed by May 1986, allowing more efficient publication of their literature in dozens of languages, with a small selection available in over 600 languages. As of January 2013, MEPS is used to publish monthly articles of their magazines for congregational study simultaneously in 204 languages.

An earlier solution to the problem of requiring multilanguage printing was the IPS project; IPS and MEPS were developed at the same time, MEPS being intended as a longer-term project to supersede IPS once it had been completed and fully developed.