The printing press is a machine that allows the mass production of uniform printed materials, mainly text in the form of books, brochures and newspapers.

The printing press created in China revolutionized society there before it was further developed in Europe in the 15th century by Johannes Gutenberg and his invention of the Gutenberg printing press.

When Was the Printing House Invented?

No one knows when or who invented the first printing press, but the earliest known printed text appeared in China in the first millennium AD. The Diamond Sutra, a Buddhist book from Dunhuang, China around 868 AD during the Tang Dynasty, is said to be the oldest known printed book. The Diamond Sutra was created using a method known as block printing, using hand-carved wooden blocks in reverse.

Some other texts, such as a calendar, math charts, vocabulary guide, etiquette instruction, funeral and wedding guides, children's educational materials, dictionaries and almanacs, which were printed around 877 AD, have also survived from Dunhuang. During this early printing period, the rolled parchments began to be replaced by book-format text. Woodblock printing was also used in Japan and Korea at the time, and at some point during this period, metal block printing was also developed for typically Buddhist and Taoist texts.

Bi Sheng

Replacing the panels of printing blocks with reusable movable individual letters, the movable type was developed by Bi Sheng from Yingshan Hubei, China, who lived roughly from AD 970 to 1051. The first movable type was carved into clay and formed into solid blocks and then placed on an iron frame that was pressed against an iron plate. The first mention of Bi Sheng's printing house is in Dream Pool Essays (Dream Pool Essays), written by scientist Shen Kuo in 1086, which records that Bi Sheng's fonts were in the hands of his nephews after his death. Shen Kuo explained that Bi Sheng does not use wood because the texture is inconsistent and absorbs moisture very easily, and also the ink has a sticking problem. Baked clay is better cleaned for reuse. During the Southern Song Dynasty, which reigned from 1127 to 1279 AD, books became widespread in society and helped create a class of scientific citizens capable of becoming civil servants. Large printed book collections have also become a status symbol for the wealthy class.

Wang Chen

Ching judge Wang Chen made a comeback in 1297 when he published an article on agriculture and farming practices called Nung Shu. Wang Chen designed a process to make the wood more durable and delicate. He then created a turntable for setters to organize more efficiently, which led to higher speed in printing.

Nung Shu is considered the world's first mass-produced book. It was exported to Europe and incidentally documented many Chinese inventions traditionally attributed to Europeans. Wang Chen's wooden die type method continued to be used by printers in China.

Johannes Gutenberg

Printing in Europe did not appear until 150 years after Wang Chen's innovation. Mainz was a political exile from Germany when jeweler and inventor Johannes Gutenberg began experimenting with printing in Strasbourg, France, in 1440. He returned to Mainz a few years later, and in 1450 he had a perfected and commercially available press: the Gutenberg press.

Gutenberg Press

An integral part of Gutenberg's design was replacing wood with metal and creating a European version of the movable type by creating printing blocks with each letter. To make the type available in large quantities and in different printing stages, Gutenberg applied the concept of replica casting, which saw the letters created upside down in brass, followed by replicas made from these molds by pouring molten lead.

The researchers estimated that Gutenberg actually used a sand casting system that used carved sand to create metal molds. The letters are formatted to fit evenly together to create straight lines and coherent columns of letters in plain media. Gutenberg's process wouldn't have worked so smoothly if he hadn't made his own ink to stick to metal and not wood. Gutenberg was able to perfect a method for flattening printing paper using a wine press traditionally used to press grapes for wine and olives for oil, adapted to the printing press design.

Gutenberg Bible

Gutenberg borrowed a loan from Johannes Fust to fund the Bible project, and in 1452 Fust joined Gutenberg as a partner to create the book. They decided to print calendars, brochures and other documents. In 1452 he released the only book that came out of the Gutenberg shop: the Bible. It is estimated that he printed 180 copies of the 1,300-page Gutenberg Bible, 60 of which were printed on parchment. Each page of the Bible contained 42 lines of Gothic text.

For the Bible, Gutenberg used 300 individually molded letter blocks and 50,000 sheets of paper. Many parts of the books have survived. There are 21 complete copies of the Gutenberg Bible and four complete copies of the parchment version.

Gutenberg's Later Years

In 1455, Fust confiscated Gutenberg. In a subsequent lawsuit, all of Gutenberg's equipment went to Fust and Peter Schoffer, a former calligrapher from Gernsheim, Germany. It is believed that Gutenberg continued to print, and possibly issued an edition of the Latin dictionary, the Catholicon, in 1460. However, Gutenberg ceased all efforts to print after 1460, possibly due to visual impairment. He died in 1468. Peter Schoffer Schoffer took advantage of Gutenberg's press upon purchase and is seen as a technically better printer and typographer than Gutenberg. Two years after Gutenberg's seizure of the press, he released a tricolor title page and an acclaimed version of the Book of Psalms, which contains several genres in the book. A notable detail about this edition is the addition of a colophon for the first time in history. Colophone is the part of the book that gives the details of the publication information. It is known that ten copies of this edition of the Book of Psalms still exist.

Print Spreads to Europe

The spread of printing as a trade has benefited from workers in Germany who helped Gutenberg with his first printing experiments and later became printers who taught the trade to others. After Germany, Italy was the next recipient of Gutenberg's invention when the printing press was brought to the country in 1465. In 1470 Italian printers began to be successful in the printed material business. German printers were invited to set up printing houses at the Sorbonne in Paris in 1470, and the librarian there selected books to be printed, mostly textbooks for students. In 1476, other German printers moved to Paris and started private companies. Spain welcomed German printers in Valencia in 1473 and spread to Barcelona in 1475. In 1495, Portuguese printers invited them to Lisbon. Gutenberg's invention was brought to England in 1476 by the Englishman William Caxton, who lived in Bruges, Belgium for years. Caxton traveled to Cologne in 1471 to set up a printing house in Bruges and learn to print to publish his own translations of various works. After returning to England, he set up a printing house in Westminster Abbey, where he worked as a printer for the monarchy until his death in 1491.

Printing is Changing the World

The worldwide proliferation of printing meant a greater distribution of ideas that threatened Europe's powerful power structures. In 1501, Pope Alexander VI promised to excommunicate anyone who printed manuscripts without the church's approval. Twenty years later, the books of John Calvin and Martin Luther spread and made what Alexander feared came true. Taking this threat further, Copernicus published On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres, which was viewed by the church as heresy. In 1605, the first official newspaper, Relation, was published and distributed in Strasbourg. Newspapers appeared all over Europe and formalized the printing press's contribution to the growth of literacy, education, and the wide-ranging accessibility of uniform information for ordinary people.