Didot, François (1689-1757)

French bookseller and founder of a renowned family that introduced many innovations to the arts of printing and paper manufacture.

The Didot family's innovations include a refinement of the point system of type sizes devised by Fournier in 1737 (which remains the standard adopted in continental Europe, under the name Système Didot), and an improvement in the stereotype method of platemaking. They also pioneered microscopic type and the manufacture of printing paper in a continuous roll.