The future was then, it just wasn't very evenly distributed.
An example of Selectric Composer output: http://www.quadibloc.com/comp/images/ps_sco2.jpg
Not sure if this is what you mean but no, the type element would just hit the paper through the ribbon once. The crispness comes entirely from the formulation of the carbon film ribbon.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/56/Sample_o...
on their Selectric page:
I used it to produce a whole book during which the typewriter motor died just after having typed in the whole thing and just before I was going to have it 'print' the text so we could cut and paste it on stand sheets for offset reproduction. I managed to find a working motor which I installed in the machine upon which I had to re-adjust the whippletree mechanism which aims the ball since the characters ended up everywhere except for where they needed to be. Those were a few intense hours since I had to go by intuition on how this all worked, not having access to a service manual and this being long before the time when you'd just go on the 'net to find one. I got it adjusted and got the book printed by feeding the typewriter with paper and the device with cassette tapes, telling it to print a page, feeding in a new sheet, next page, next cassette tape, etc.
So I edited it on 8 kilo core memory holding few pages, hoping that the core stays intact overnight.
Final blow was when professor doubted if he can accept thesis written by a computer. Because it was little bit like cheating.
Funny that now we live in an age where their complaint might actually be valid.