A professional who sets up and operates ruling machines to draw lines on tablets, notebooks, looseleaf fillers, and index cards according to specifications. Responsibilities include:

• Reads job orders to determine settings.
• Installs and adjusts machine parts, such as slitting knives, trimming blades, ruling heads, discs or pens, printing reels, belts, and gear, using handtools.
• Sets guides, feed rollers, punching units, and other machine parts to accommodate size and style of material being produced.
• Mixes ink compounds, fills ink wells, and turns valves to regulate flow of ink.
• Places stacks of paper sheets on feedboard of machine or installs rolls of paper in roll-fed machine and turns handwheel to adjust cutting mechanism that cuts product to specified length.
• Sets counter when printing sheets for looseleaf fillers.
• Starts machine for test run.
• Examines lines being drawn to detect variations in line width or color tone, and measures dimensions of product, using tape rule, to ensure conformance to specifications.
• Makes adjustments as required.
• Starts machine and observes operation of machine during production run.
• Inserts pieces of cardboard and sheets of printed paper into stacks of lined sheets at specified intervals to provide backs and fronts when making tablets.
• Stops machine when malfunction occurs, corrects malfunction, or notifies other worker of malfunction.
• Cleans machine parts, using solvent.
• May oversee workers in supplying paper stock to machine.
• May operate roll-fed machine, equipped with paper cutter and two sets of ruling heads or pens to draw horizontal and vertical lines, and be designated l-type-ruling-machine operator.