Accuracy and alacrity are two requirements at TIME, and both have been served by the computer revolution. Since the mid-1960s, staffers at TIME headquarters in New York City have used keyboards and video-display screens to complete tasks that were once accomplished with scissors and rubber cement.

In this electronic operation, the typesetters of former years have been transformed into "copy processors." Among them are a crack crew called page coders. Working at a bank of glowing terminals, they convert stories into unique computer-language translations, or "codes," in which photographs, text and other elements of the page are represented by numerical commands.

As the final elements of the magazine are readied--the photo captions and credits, the black lines that separate columns--the coders instruct TIME'S Atex system to add them to its numerical picture. When a page is complete, it goes to the "IMPACT" center. From there, it is transmitted to satellites that send it to 18 printing plants around the world.

Despite the complexity of converting visuals into numbers, coders say that the computer procedures are a quantum leap over the all-manual page assembly of the past. "This method is more exact," explains Coder Steve Feeback. "The computer can align things more precisely than the eye."

An even bigger advantage, he adds, is speed. Take the arduous night three weeks ago when TIME produced its special election issue, which went to press just ten hours after the last polls closed. Without computer page makeup, the time-consuming chores of cut and paste would "have prevented the inclusion of late-breaking additions to stories. "With this system," says Feeback, "a new part of a story could be fitted into the layout five minutes after it was written and edited."

Explains Gerard Lelievre, TIME'S operations director, "The coders bear a lot of responsibility because they execute the last step in the editorial process. They are the gateway to the printer. When things are running behind, the coders are the ones who work to expedite the process, to get things out quickly, but without mistakes."

The crisp appearance of each page is ensured only because coders endlessly scrutinize the placement of every bit of information. "We are completely involved in the visual detail of the page," says Gary Deaton, who supervises TIME'S crew of ten coders. "We pore over every millimeter of the magazine to make sure that everything falls in place, that border lines don't overlap and that pages have a uniform appearance."

Considering the tasks involved, what kind of person makes the best coder? "The kind we have here," Deaton wryly concludes. "Ten compulsive people with a completion obsession."