Does anybody remember typing correction paper?

[HmmmCat]

Does anybody remember using typing correction paper? I think it may have been called snowpake paper. It was like chalky white carbon paper. If you made a mistake typing, you aligned the mistake back in the typing space, slipped a piece of correction paper behind the guide but in front of the mistake, and then hit the same wrong key. If you were lucky, the letters aligned perfectly and you overtyped the incorrect letter in white. Then you could overtype it again with the correct letter. Fiddly, but neater and quicker than painting Tippex a few years later.

Oh Banda rings a bell, thanks for the explanation @DeftWasp

i learned to type on a manual typewriter, no electric ones at my school (1978-9) and did Pitman shorthand although I can’t remember much of it now. Being able to touch-type has been very useful, and I used to astonish colleagues (much later in life in a professional job) by being able to type whilst looking in a completely different direction. I do agree that wordprocessing has reduced accuracy, although I wouldn’t want to go back to manual typing.

I think they should teach keyboard skills at school. Almost every job requires you to type your own emails and reports and it pains me to see people picking things out with two fingers. Although I suppose most people will use dictating software now.

I worked in the NHS as a med sec in the early 80s. Any forms we needed (mainly outpatient appointments or inpatient admissions) were created by typing on waxy stencils. We then marched up to the print room where Pat, the print room lady, would strap them to the big drum printer and manually churn a load out for us.

The stencil correction fluid was a neon pink concoction that was wonderful to sniff!

My typewriter was a manual Olivetti, and when I left they gave it to me as the hospital was getting electric ones.

I remember at college, one day we all trooped over to a separate building to see a golf ball typewriter demonstration. It was amazing!!

I used an IBM golf ball in my first job and one day the ball shot out of the typewriter and hit the ceiling above and a chunk of concrete fell out of the ceiling on dented the casing of the typewriter! Before the days of health and safety. I can’t remember what I used for corrections but it was likely paper. We had lot of ‘bander’ purple ink worksheets given to us at school, pre photocopier days. I remember when we first got a PC in the office - just the one. Used to do mail merge with word star. Felt very sci fi. Otherwise we had VDU terminals to interrogate a mainframe based miles away. Mid 80’s I think.

I’m sorry you have that 😢. I count my blessings as having used keyboards since I was 16 and now nearly retired, I haven’t developed any rsi type things.

Yes!!! There was a telex operator where I worked too. I remember all the little reels of tape. It was amazing that use wasnt just for quick messages - I was in a legal firm and long documents would go through it.

Oh wow that never happened to me but you’re right, there was little health and safety back in the seventies and eighties. I mean, there were ashtrays on desks, lunchtime drinking, horrible ear plugs for the dictaphone, and loads more. Didn’t give it a thought at the time but looking back!

Yes I remember it!

I remember the days BEFORE tip ex! Then you had to re do the whole lot. My first job in 1965,as a clerk for the local council, the photocopier was absolutely enormous, and you had to re fill it with black powder,a really messy job. It was about 6 feet long,4 feet high. It had its own room.

Yesssss!!!!
oh, the memories this brings back! 🤣 I had completely forgotten about carbon copies!
Learning to type on a manual typewriter.
Getting excited when I upgraded to an electric one.
Getting even more excited when our office purchased a word processor which we took turns at using 🤣

I remember using tippex paper to correct the top copy but can’t remember how we corrected the carbon copies? Did we use a typing rubber? Like a pencil to look at with a rubber tip or correcting fluid?

I remember the correction ribbon being a faff to change as you had to squeeze it in behind the proper ribbon.

I can touch type too and a lot of the letters on my keys have rubbed away completely, which I only notice when someone else points it out. Remember the absolute pain of sending faxes through page by page, nearly getting to the end only for the sodding machine to grab 3 pages at once and jam? 😫

Orders were sometimes sent by Telex when I was a clerk. I got sent to the bank which was a flagship city branch. They had a Telex machine printing out live news headlines for customers to read.

I used it frequently! A sit up and beg typewriter with ribbon. I learned Pitmans shorthand too and still use that today. Back in the day I used a telex machine. When I progressed to a golf ball typewriter I thought it was the bees knees. Then came word processors.

My nana who owned an employment and office services agency had one of these.

I remember when you got the electric typewriter with the second ribbon that lifted ink. It felt so high tech

My DM years ago when she left her secretarial college (private) suddenly as she didn’t want to go anymore (she’d have preferred art school) her mother who owned an employment agency as a punishment sent her to work for Max Factor as a copy typist, presumably as a temp. As it says on the tin and very boring.

I remember that, in 80s 90s but I was born in 1971.

I still have my parents’ ancient Olivetti portable (slim-but-hefty) typewriter. It used a dual-colour ribbon, so you could press an extra key to raise the ribbon to type in red. That’s what triggered this thread - I was showing it to my dc. I remember using the Olivetti to apply for my first jobs.

I learned Pitman shorthand, but never used it enough to retain it. I also learned to touchtype and became a very good audio-typist. Weird how it felt like the words flowed from your ears to your hands, bypassing your brain, almost trance-like. I was a fast typist, too fast for the little Olivetti, so my parents bought me an electronic word-processing typewriter with a two line memory for my birthday. It was so fancy for the time! You could type straight onto the paper, or you could type into memory, edit on the two line screen, and then watch the typewriter typing those two lines by itself.

I cannot type nearly as fast nor as accurately on laptops. The keyboard is too flat. But give me a computer with an old-fashioned raked keyboard with chunky keys, and I rattle along.

When looking at the things to clear out of my late mother's house, I found two bottles of Tippex. The old typewriter was given to someone about 20 years ago.

A few months ago I described a 1990s football kit as 'Tippex and snot' and got blank looks from those who did not what Tippex was.

Tippex, typing ribbon , carbon paper that came off on your hands and photocopiers with a mind of its own.
No wonder letters took a while to be sent !

Ypu could get tippex in pink green and yellow to match the carbon copies. :D

My first job was as an office junior which was 70 percent filing 20 percent franking machine duties and 10 percent buying lunches and making coffee for everyone. I wasn't allowed near the new electric typewriter.

I was so happy when we got Word Perfect in a giant box. Black screen with neon text.

Yes! I started work as a legal Secretary in 1979. I'd learned to type on a manual Olivetti in college. We also had two electric typewriters in our classroom and we had a rota so that we could each get some experience of using it. When I started work it was on a manual and then get all got golfball typewriters. What a row when we were all clattering away!

Ah, Olivetti portables, I had one when I was at uni in the 90's, hammered out a few essays on it. Sadly long gone, still remember it, grey with black keys, a Lettera 22.

I think it was early 'Office' that I remember came with a stack of thick paperback manuals that took up over a foot of shelf space!

Yes, Bandas! They were horrible and my heart sank if I had to do one. We were taught how to do them on my medical secretarial course as well as stencils. If you made a mistake on a banda, in my day, you had to chuck it and type a new one (and be frowned at by the tutor/employer, as it was a waste). They also covered us and everything in smudgy black. Stencils were better because you could block any typing mistakes with nail varnish and retype on same sheet. They both disappeared from offices within a few years after that as photocopiers became more widely used.