Copying books by hand
Before the printing press, books in Europe were copied by hand, letter by letter. These handwritten books are called manuscripts. A single Bible could take a skilled scribe more than a year to copy. Books were so rare and expensive that only churches, universities and wealthy people owned them.
Printing in Asia first
Printing was invented long before Gutenberg, in East Asia.
| Date | Invention | Where |
|---|---|---|
| About 600s CE | Woodblock printing: whole pages carved into wooden blocks | China |
| 868 CE | Diamond Sutra, the oldest dated printed book that survives | China |
| About 1040 | Movable type made of baked clay, invented by Bi Sheng | China |
| 1377 | Jikji, the oldest surviving book printed with metal movable type | Korea |
Chinese has thousands of characters, which made movable type harder to use than in languages with small alphabets.
Gutenberg’s press
Around 1440, Johannes Gutenberg, a goldsmith in Mainz, Germany, combined several ideas into a fast, practical printing system.
| Innovation | Why it mattered |
|---|---|
| Metal movable type | Durable letters cast in a hand mould could be made quickly and reused thousands of times |
| Type metal alloy | A mix of lead, tin and antimony that melted easily and hardened quickly |
| Oil-based ink | Stuck to metal type better than water-based inks |
| Screw press | Adapted from wine and olive presses to press paper evenly against the type |
Around 1455, Gutenberg printed about 180 copies of the Bible, known as the Gutenberg Bible. About 49 copies survive today.
How it worked
- A typesetter arranged individual metal letters, backwards, in rows to form a page.
- The type was locked into a frame.
- Ink was dabbed onto the type.
- Damp paper was laid on top.
- A worker turned a large screw to press the paper firmly onto the type.
- The printed sheet was hung to dry.
A press could print several hundred pages a day, compared with a few pages by hand.
How printing changed the world
By 1500, presses in over 250 European cities had printed millions of books.
| Change | Explanation |
|---|---|
| Cheaper books | More people could afford them |
| Rising literacy | More books gave more people a reason to learn to read |
| Spread of ideas | Ideas travelled quickly and accurately |
| Science | Scientists could share precise, identical diagrams and results; the Scientific Revolution followed |
| The Reformation | Martin Luther’s ideas spread across Europe through printed pamphlets after 1517 |
| Standard languages | Printed books helped standardize spelling and grammar |
| Newspapers | The first regular newspapers appeared in the early 1600s |
Some historians call the printing press one of the most important inventions of the last thousand years.
Printing in Canada
The first printing press in what is now Canada was set up in Halifax in 1751. The Halifax Gazette, first published in 1752, was Canada’s first newspaper.
Later developments
| Year | Development |
|---|---|
| 1800s | Steam-powered and rotary presses printed thousands of pages per hour |
| 1886 | Linotype machine set whole lines of type at once |
| 1900s | Offset printing used for books and magazines |
| 1970s–80s | Laser and inkjet printers brought printing to offices and homes |
| Today | Digital publishing, e-books and 3D printing |
Common mistakes
- Thinking Gutenberg invented printing. Printing began in China; Gutenberg made movable-type printing fast and practical in Europe.
- Thinking type was arranged facing forward. It was a mirror image so the print would read correctly.
Try it yourself
- Carve your initials backwards into a potato half or foam sheet. Ink it and stamp it on paper.
- Time how long it takes to copy a paragraph by hand. How long would a whole book take?
- Make a list of ideas you learned this week from printed or digital text.
Quick recap
- Before printing, books were copied by hand and were rare.
- Woodblock and movable-type printing began in China and Korea.
- Gutenberg’s metal type, oil ink and screw press made printing fast around 1440.
- Printing spread knowledge, raised literacy and helped spark the Reformation and the Scientific Revolution.
- Printing evolved into today’s digital publishing and 3D printing.