Before printing, books were hand produced, a long and expensive process. Thus books were a luxury item and highly valued.
The written word was circulated initially on wax or clay tablets and later via papyrus. This was fine for communication that was intended to be short lived but for information intended to be retained and studied scrolls were used and later parchment and vellum sheets. But everything had to be hand-written and copies took the same time as he original, sometimes years if the manuscripts were as elaborately illustrated as the illuminated gospels for example.
The Chinese were the first to develop printing as a way of producing more than one copy of a text but even this first process was time consuming.
Pages were hand-carved onto wooden blocks which were inked and then had paper impressed onto them.
However it took time to carve the complicated characters and if a mistake was made the block had to be thrown away and a new one started. It also meant that each block could only be used for that one book.
There had to be a better way. Enter Bi Sheng, a Chinese artisan and engineer.
The Chinese were the first to develop printing as a way of producing more than one copy of a text but even this first process was time consuming.
Pages were hand-carved onto wooden blocks which were inked and then had paper impressed onto them.
However it took time to carve the complicated characters and if a mistake was made the block had to be thrown away and a new one started. It also meant that each block could only be used for that one book.
There had to be a better way. Enter Bi Sheng, a Chinese artisan and engineer.
Born in 990 CE during the Song Dynasty, Bi Sheng created the first moveable type system between 1039 and 1048.
Bi’s system used fired clay tablets, one for each Chinese character, which were laid on an iron plate which had been covered in pine resin, wax and paper ash. He laid a metal frame on the plate and placed each individual character close together.
When the frame was full he placed it near the fire so that the paste at the back melted slightly. He then took a smooth board and pressed it over the surface so that the face of the type was uniformly flat. The type was then inked and a sheet of paper pressed onto it by hand.
While Bi Sheng’s invention was revolutionary, the number of characters in the Chinese language made it time consuming to produce a font of type and to construct a page and the low cost of hand copying saw the invention sidelined.
Bi’s system used fired clay tablets, one for each Chinese character, which were laid on an iron plate which had been covered in pine resin, wax and paper ash. He laid a metal frame on the plate and placed each individual character close together.
When the frame was full he placed it near the fire so that the paste at the back melted slightly. He then took a smooth board and pressed it over the surface so that the face of the type was uniformly flat. The type was then inked and a sheet of paper pressed onto it by hand.
While Bi Sheng’s invention was revolutionary, the number of characters in the Chinese language made it time consuming to produce a font of type and to construct a page and the low cost of hand copying saw the invention sidelined.
The earliest European mention of mechanized printing appears in a lawsuit in Strasbourg in 1439, concerning the making of a press for Johannes Gutenberg and his associates. However it seems Gutenberg was not the one to invent the European version of moveable type. This was probably the achievement of Dutch printer Laurens Janszoon Coster as there were printed book in Holland before Gutenberg’s time. These were rather rudimentary however and it was on this basic model that Gutenberg was to build so splendidly.
Gutenberg’s press owed much to medieval paper press which was intern modelled on the ancient olive and wine presses of the Mediterranean area.
A long handle was used to turn a heavy wooden screw, exerting downward pressure against the paper which was laid over a wooden platen containing the moveable characters.
Gutenberg used his press to print his famous bible in 1455 which is the first extant book in the West though not in the world. Jikji, a book of teachings of Buddhist priests, was printed by hand from moveable type in Korea in 1377.
Gutenberg’s press owed much to medieval paper press which was intern modelled on the ancient olive and wine presses of the Mediterranean area.
A long handle was used to turn a heavy wooden screw, exerting downward pressure against the paper which was laid over a wooden platen containing the moveable characters.
Gutenberg used his press to print his famous bible in 1455 which is the first extant book in the West though not in the world. Jikji, a book of teachings of Buddhist priests, was printed by hand from moveable type in Korea in 1377.
The wooden press created by Gutenberg reigned supreme for more than 300 years with a hardly variable rate of 250 sheets per hour printed on one side.
Metal presses began to appear in the late 18th century. By the mid-19th century, Richard How of New York had perfected a power-driven cylinder press capable of printing 8,000 sheets an hour which dominated the high-speed newspaper industry.
The flatbed press continued to be used for job printing and in the late 19th century the offset press, capable of printing multiple colours in one run, became the standard for colour printing. Offset lithography, used for books, newspapers, magazines and direct mail continued to be the most widely used method at the start of the 21st century, though it has been challenged by ink-jet, laser and other printing methods.
Now a newspaper can be printed for a few cents and books have become big business due to the cost-efficiency of their production and the printed word is now widely available to virtually everyone.
Metal presses began to appear in the late 18th century. By the mid-19th century, Richard How of New York had perfected a power-driven cylinder press capable of printing 8,000 sheets an hour which dominated the high-speed newspaper industry.
The flatbed press continued to be used for job printing and in the late 19th century the offset press, capable of printing multiple colours in one run, became the standard for colour printing. Offset lithography, used for books, newspapers, magazines and direct mail continued to be the most widely used method at the start of the 21st century, though it has been challenged by ink-jet, laser and other printing methods.
Now a newspaper can be printed for a few cents and books have become big business due to the cost-efficiency of their production and the printed word is now widely available to virtually everyone.
