The story of print

Printing has come a long way since its origins. Here we map out the story of print past, present and future

Illustration depicting a 19th century printer and typesetter in a workshop, circa 1850. The printer stands at the press while the typesetter sits selecting types for composition. (Photo by Hu
(Image credit: 2010 Getty Images)

For nearly 2,000 years, printing has helped people share news, thoughts and ideas. As our civilisations developed, so we needed to move away from cutting or stamping designs in primitive clay tablets. There were limits to how many copies of a scroll one scribe could produce. By 220AD, the early Chinese printmakers were cutting words and pictures on wooden blocks and applying a layer of fine ink before pressing onto paper. By the time woodblock printing had become common in Europe in the mid-14th century, more complex multi-page works were being printed. It wasn’t long before these became printed books.

The manual printing press

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