HISTORICAL BACKGROUND OF PRINTING

The history of printing began as an attempt to make easier and reduce the cost of
reproducing multiple copies of documents, fabrics, wall papers and so on. Printing
streamlined the process of communication, and contributed to the development of
commerce, law, religion and culture.

BLOCK PRINTING

Woodblock printing is a technique for printing text, images or patterns used widely
throughout East Asia and originating in China in antiquity as a method of printing on textiles
and later paper. As a method of printing on cloth, the earliest surviving examples from
China date to before 220, and from Egypt to the 4th century.[1] Ukiyo-e is the best known
type of Japanese woodblock art print. Most European uses of the technique on paper are
covered by the art term woodcut, except for the block-books produced mainly in the
fifteenth century.
The use of round "cylinder seals" for rolling an impress onto clay tablets goes back to
early Mesopotamian civilization before 3,000 BCE, where they are the most common works
of art to survive, and feature complex and beautiful images. In both China and Egypt, the
use of small stamps for seals preceded the use of larger blocks. In Egypt, Europe and India,
the printing of cloth certainly preceded the printing of paper or papyrus; this was probably
also the case in China. The process is essentially the same - in Europe special presentation
impressions of prints were often printed on silk until at least the seventeenth century.

Development of block printing

 The use of round "cylinder seals" for rolling an impress onto clay tablets goes back to
early Mesopotamian civilization before 3,000 BC, where they are the commonest works of
art to survive, and feature complex and beautiful images. In both China and Egypt, the use
of small stamps for seals preceded the use of larger blocks. In Egypt, Europe, and India, the
printing of cloth certainly preceded the printing of paper or papyrus; this was probably also
the case in China. The process is essentially the same—in Europe special presentation
impressions of prints were often printed on silk until at least the seventeenth century.
The earliest woodblock printed fragments to survive are from China and are of silk printed
with flowers in three colours from the Han dynasty (before AD 220 ).[3] The earliest
Egyptian printed cloth dates from the 4th century.[1] The dry conditions in Egypt are
exceptionally good for preserving fabric compared to, for example, India.

It is clear that woodblock printing developed in Asia several centuries before Europe. The
Chinese and Koreans were the first to use the process to print solid text, and equally that,
much later, in Europe the printing of images on cloth developed into the printing of images
on paper (woodcuts). It is also now established that the use in Europe of the same process to
print substantial amounts of text together with images in block-books only came after the
development of movable type in the 1450s.

It is not clear if the Egyptian printing of cloth was learned from China, or elsewhere, or
developed separately. Block printing, called tarsh in Arabic was developed in Arabic Egypt
during the 9th-10th centuries, mostly for prayers and amulets. There were different types of
print blocks, including ones made from metal, wood and other materials.[4][5] This technique,
however, appears to have had very little influence outside of the Muslim world. Though
Europe adopted woodblock printing from the Muslim world, initially for fabric, the
technique of metal block printing was also unknown in Europe. Block printing later went out
of use in Islamic Central Asia after movable type printing was introduced from China.

Coloured woodcut Buddha, 10th century, China

In China, an alternative to woodblock printing was a system of reprography since the Han
Dynasty using carved stone steles to reproduce pages of text.[6]

In India the main importance of the technique has always been as a method of printing
textiles, which has been a large industry for centuries. Large quantities of printed Indian silk
and cotton were exported to Europe throughout the Modern Period.
The three necessary components for woodblock printing are the wood block, which carries
the design cut in relief; dye or ink, which had been widely used in the ancient world; and
either cloth or paper, which was first developed in China, around the 3rd or 2nd century BC.
Woodblock printing on papyrus seems never to have been practised, although it would be
possible.

Because Chinese has a character set running into the thousands, woodblock printing suits it
better than movable type to the extent that characters only need to be created as they occur
in the text. Although the Chinese had invented a form of movable type with baked clay in
the 11th century, and metal movable type was introduced in Korea in the 13th century,
woodblocks continued to be preferred owing to the formidable challenges of typesetting
Chinese text with its 40,000 or more characters. Also, the objective of printing in the East
may have been more focused on standardization of ritual text (such as the Buddhist canon
Tripitaka, requiring 130,000 woodblocks), and the purity of validated woodblocks could be
maintained for centuries.[7] When there was a need for the reproduction of a text, the original
block could simply be brought out again, while moveable type necessitated error-prone
composition of distinct "editions".

In China, Korea, and Japan, the state involved itself in printing at a relatively early stage;
initially only the government had the resources to finance the carving of the blocks for long
works.

The difference between East Asian woodblock printing and the Western printing press
had major implications for the development of book culture and book markets in East
Asia and Europe.

Woodblock printing in China

The earliest woodblock printed fragments to survive are from China and are of silk
printed with flowers in three colours from the Han dynasty (before 220 CE). The earliest
Egyptian printed cloth dates from the 4th century.
It is clear that the Chinese were the first by several centuries to use the process to print
solid text, and equally that, much later, in Europe the printing of images on cloth developed
into the printing of images on paper (woodcuts). It is also now established that the use in
Europe of the same process to print substantial amounts of text together with images in
block-books only came after the development of movable type in the 1450s.
chinese were considered as first printers.

Woodblock printing in the Islamic world

Block printing, called tarsh in Arabic was developed in Arabic Egypt during the 9th-10th
centuries, mostly for prayers and amulets. There is some evidence to suggest that the print
blocks were made from a variety of different materials besides wood, including metals such
as tin, lead and cast iron, as well as stone, glass and clay. However, the techniques employed
are uncertain and they appear to have had very little influence outside of the Muslim world.
Though Europe adopted woodblock printing from the Muslim world, initially for fabric, the
technique of metal block printing remained unknown in Europe. Block printing later went
out of use in Islamic Central Asia after movable type printing was introduced from China.

Woodblock printing in Europe

Block printing first came to Christian Europe as a method for printing on cloth, where it
was common by 1300. Images printed on cloth for religious purposes could be quite large
and elaborate, and when paper became relatively easily available, around 1400, the medium
transferred very quickly to small woodcut religious images and playing cards printed on
paper. These prints were produced in very large numbers from about 1425 onwards.
Around the mid-century, block-books, woodcut books with both text and images, usually
carved in the same block, emerged as a cheaper alternative to manuscripts and books printed
with movable type. These were all short heavily illustrated works, the bestsellers of the day,
repeated in many different block-book versions: the Ars moriendi and the Biblia pauperum
were the most common. There is still some controversy among scholars as to whether their
introduction preceded or, the majority view, followed the introduction of movable type, with
the range of estimated dates being between about 1440–1460.[5]
The volume of Joseph Needham's Science and Civilization in China dealing with Paper and
printing has a chapter that suggests that "European block printers must not only have seen
Chinese samples, but perhaps had been taught by missionaries or others who had learned
these un-European methods from Chinese printers during their residence in China.", but he
also admitted that the "only evidence of European printing transmitted from China is a lack
of counterevidence".[6] However, paper itself was needed for the printing process and this
came to Europe via trade with the Arabs from China. Historians acknowledge that paper
indeed came from China without which printing would have been impossible, however,
there is less direct evidence of the influence of printing technology from Asia and its
influence on European printing technology.

Block-books in fifteenth century Europe

Three episodes from a block-book Biblia Pauperum illustrating typological correspondences
between the Old and New Testaments: Eve and the serpent, the Annunciation, Gideon's
miracle

Block-books, where both text and images are cut on a single block for a whole page,
appeared in Europe in the 1460s as a cheaper alternative to books printed by movable type.[9]
These are different from woodcuts illustrated books using images, perhaps with a title, cut in
a single block and used as a book illustration with the adjacent text printed using movable
type. The only example of the blockbook form that contains no images is the school
textbook Latin grammar of Donatus.

The most famous block-books are the Speculum Humanae Salvationis and the Ars moriendi,
though in this the images and text are on different pages, but all block-cut. The Biblia
pauperum, a Biblical picture-book, was the next most common title, and the great majority
of block-books were popular devotional works. All block-books are fairly short at less than
fifty pages. While in Europe movable metal type soon became cheap enough to replace
woodblock printing for the reproduction of text, woodcuts remained a major way to
reproduce images in illustrated works of early modern European printing. See old master
print.

Most block-books before about 1480 were printed on only one side of the paper — if they
were printed by rubbing it would be difficult to print on both sides without damaging the
first one to be printed. Many were printed with two pages per sheet, producing a book with
opening of two printed pages, followed by openings with two blank pages (as earlier in
China). The blank pages were then glued together to produce a book looking like a type-
printed one. Where both sides of a sheet have been printed, it is presumed a printing-press
was used.

Woodblock printing in Eurasia

The technique is found through East and Central Asia, and in the Byzantine world for
cloth, and by AD 1000 examples of woodblock printing on paper appear in Islamic Egypt.
Printing onto cloth had spread much earlier, and was common in Europe by 1300.
Woodblock printing on paper of images only began in Europe around 1400, almost as soon
as paper became available, and the print in woodcut, later joined by engraving, quickly
became an important cultural tradition for popular religious works, as well as playing cards
and other uses.[2]

Many early Chinese examples, such as the Diamond Sutra contain images, mostly
Buddhist, that are often elaborate. Later, some notable artists designed woodblock images
for books, but the separate artistic print did not develop in China as it did in Europe and
Japan. Apart from devotional images, mainly Buddhist, few "single-leaf" Chinese prints
were made until the nineteenth century.

Woodblock printing in Japan

The earliest known woodblock printing dates from 764-770, when an Empress
commissioned one million small wooden pagodas containing short printed scrolls (typically
6 x 45 cm) to be distributed to temples.[6] Apart from the production of Buddhist texts,
which became widespread from the eleventh century in Japan, the process was only adopted
in Japan for secular books surprisingly late, and a Chinese-Japanese dictionary of 1590 is the
earliest known example.

Though the Jesuits operated a movable type printing-press in Nagasaki, printing

equipment[11] brought back by Toyotomi Hideyoshi's army from Korea in 1593 had far
greater influence on the development of the medium. Four years later, Tokugawa Ieyasu,
even before becoming shogun, effected the creation of the first native movable type,[11] using
wooden type-pieces rather than metal. He oversaw the creation of 100,000 type-pieces,
which were used to print a number of political and historical texts.

An edition of the Confucian Analects was printed in 1598, using a Korean moveable type
printing press, at the order of Emperor Go-Yōzei. This document is the oldest work of
Japanese moveable type printing extant today. Despite the appeal of moveable type,
however, it was soon decided that the running script style of Japanese writings would be
better reproduced using woodblocks, and so woodblocks were once more adopted; by 1640
they were once again being used for nearly all purposes.[12]

It quickly gained popularity among artists of ukiyo-e, and was used to produce small, cheap,
art prints as well as books. Japan began to see something of literary mass production. The
content of these books varied widely, including travel guides, advice manuals, kibyōshi
(satirical novels), sharebon (books on urban culture), art books, and play scripts for the
jōruri (puppet) theatre. Often, within a certain genre, such as the jōruri theatre scripts, a
particular style of writing would come to be the standard for that genre; in other words, one
person's personal calligraphic style was adopted as the standard style for printing plays.
Woodblock printing in France

Woodblock printing on wallpaper became famous in France at the end of the 18th century.
Manufactures like Joseph Dufour et Cie (1797 - ca. 1830) or Zuber et Cie (founded 1797)
used the woodblock printing for wall paper production. In 1806, in collaboration with the
artist Jean-Gabriel Charvet, Dufour et Cie produced a twenty-panel set of scenic wallpaper
entitled Sauvages de la Mer du Pacifique (Savages of the Pacific), which became very
famous. It was the largest panoramic wallpaper of its time, and marked the burgeoning of a
French industry in panoramic wallpapers. Dufour realized almost immediate success from
the sale of these papers and enjoyed a lively trade with America. The Neoclassic spirit
currently in favor was accented handsomely in houses of the Federal period by the
exaggerated elegance of Charvet's scenes. Like most of eighteenth century wallpapers, the
panorama was designed to be hung above a dado.

While Joseph Dufour et Cie was shut down in the 1830ies Zuber et Cie is still existing and
claims to be the last factory in the world to produce woodblock printed wallpapers and
furnishing fabrics.

For its production Zuber uses woodblocks out of an archiv of more more than 100,000
engraved from the XVII and XIX century which are classified as a "Historical Monument".
It offers panoramic szeneries such as “du Vue de l'Amérique Nord”, “Eldorado Hindoustan”
or “Isola Bella” and also wallpapers, friezes and ceilings as well as hand printed furnishing
fabrics.

Early books

The intricate frontispiece of the Diamond Sutra from Tang Dynasty China, the world's
earliest dated printed book, AD 868 (British Museum)
Woodblock printing in China is strongly associated with Buddhism, which encouraged the
spread of charms and sutras. In the Tang Dynasty, a Chinese writer named Fenzhi first
mentioned in his book "Yuan Xian San Ji" that the woodblock was used to print Buddhist
scriptures during the Zhenguan years (AD 627~649). The oldest known Chinese surviving
printed work is a woodblock-printed Buddhist scripture of Wu Zetian period (AD 684~705);
discovered in Turfan, Xinjiang province, China in 1906, it is now stored in a calligraphy
museum in Tokyo, Japan.

A woodblock print of the Dharani sutra dated between AD 704 and 751 was found at
Bulguksa, South Korea in 1966. [1] [2] [3] [4] Its Buddhist text was printed on a mulberry
paper scroll 8 cm wide and 630 cm long in the early Korean Kingdom of Unified Silla.
Another version of the Dharani sutra, printed in Japan around AD 770, is also frequently
cited as an example of early printing. One million copies of the sutra, along with other
prayers, were ordered to be produced by Empress Shōtoku. As each copy was then stored in
a tiny wooden pagoda, the copies are together known as the Hyakumantō Darani (百万塔陀
羅尼, "1,000,000 towers/pagodas Darani").

The world's earliest dated (AD 868) printed book is a Chinese scroll about sixteen feet long
and containing the text of the Diamond Sutra. It was found in 1907 by the archaeologist Sir
Marc Aurel Stein in Mogao Caves in Dunhuang, and is now in the British Museum. The
book displays a great maturity of design and layout and speaks of a considerable ancestry for
woodblock printing. The colophon, at the inner end, reads: Reverently [caused to be] made
for universal free distribution by Wang Jie on behalf of his two parents on the 13th of the
4th moon of the 9th year of Xiantong [i.e. 11 May, AD 868 ].

Finely crafted books—like the Bencao (materia medica) shown here—were produced in
China as early as the ninth century.

In late 10th century China the complete Buddhist canon Tripitaka of 130,000 pages was
printed with blocks, which took between 1080 and 1102, and many other very long works
were printed. Early books were on scrolls, but other book formats were developed. First
came the Jingzhe zhuang or "sutra binding", a scroll folded concertina-wise, which avoided
the need to unroll half a scroll to see a passage in the middle. About AD 1000 "butterfly
binding" was developed; two pages were printed on a sheet, which was then folded inwards.
The sheets were then pasted together at the fold to make a codex with alternate openings of
printed and blank pairs of pages. In the fourteenth century the folding was reversed outwards
to give continuous printed pages, each backed by a blank hidden page. Later the bindings
were sewn rather than pasted. Only relatively small volumes (juan) were bound up, and
several of these would be enclosed in a cover called a tao, with wooden boards at front and
back, and loops and pegs to close up the book when not in use. For example one complete
Tripitaka had over 6,400 juan in 595 tao.

Movable type

Movable type is the system of printing and typography that uses movable components to
reproduce the elements of a document (usually individual letters or punctuation). The first
known movable type system was invented in China by Bi Sheng out of ceramic between
1041 and 1048. Metal movable type was first invented in Korea during the Goryeo Dynasty
(around 1230). This led to the printing of the Jikji in 1377—today the world's oldest extant
movable metal print book.

Neither movable type system was widely used, probably because of the enormous amount of
labour involved in manipulating the thousands of ceramic tablets, or in the case of Korea,
metal tablets, required by the use of Chinese characters.

A case of cast metal type pieces and typeset matter in a composing stick

Around 1040, the first known movable type system was created in China by Bi Sheng out of
porcelain. Metal movable type was first invented in Korea during the Goryeo Dynasty
(around 1230). Neither movable type system was widely used, one reason being the
enormous Chinese character set.

It is traditionally summarized that Johannes Gutenberg, of the German city of Mainz,

developed European movable type printing technology around 1439 and in just over a
decade, the European age of printing began. However, the details show a more complex
evolutionary process spread over multiple locations. Also, Johann Fust and Peter Schöffer
experimented with Gutenberg in Mainz.

Compared to woodblock printing, movable type page-setting was quicker and more durable.
The metal type pieces were more durable and the lettering was more uniform, leading to
typography and fonts. The high quality and relatively low price of the Gutenberg Bible
(1455) established the superiority of movable type, and printing presses rapidly spread
across Europe, leading up to the Renaissance, and later all around the world. Today,
practically all movable type printing ultimately derives from Gutenberg's movable type
printing, which is often regarded as the most important invention of the second millennium.
[10]

Gutenberg is also credited with the introduction of an oil-based ink which was more durable
than previously used water-based inks. Having worked as a professional goldsmith,
Gutenberg made skillful use of the knowledge of metals he had learned as a craftsman.
Gutenberg was also the first to make his type from an alloy of lead, tin, and antimony,
known as type metal, printer's lead, or printer's metal, which was critical for producing
durable type that produced high-quality printed books, and proved to be more suitable for
printing than the clay, wooden or bronze types used in East Asia. To create these lead types,
Gutenberg used what some considered his most ingenious invention, a special matrix
wherewith the moulding of new movable types with an unprecedented precision at short
notice became feasible. Within a year of printing the Gutenberg Bible, Gutenberg also
published the first coloured prints.

The invention of the printing press revolutionized communication and book production
leading to the spread of knowledge. Rapidly, printing spread from Germany by emigrating
German printers, but also by foreign apprentices returning home. A printing press was built
in Venice in 1469, and by 1500 the city had 417 printers. In 1470 Johann Heynlin set up a
printing press in Paris. In 1473 Kasper Straube published the Almanach cracoviense ad
annum 1474 in Cracow. Dirk Martens set up a printing press in Aalst (Flanders) in 1473. He
printed a book about the two lovers of Enea Piccolomini who became pope Pius II.In 1476 a
printing press was set up in England by William Caxton. Belarusian Francysk Skaryna
printed the first book in Slavic language on August 6, 1517. The Italian Juan Pablos set up
an imported press in Mexico City in 1539. The first printing press in Southeast Asia was set
up in the Philippines by the Spanish in 1593. The Rev. Jose Glover brought the first printing
press to England's American colonies in 1638, but died on the voyage, so his widow,
Elizabeth Harris Glover, established the printing house, which was run by Stephen Day and
became The Cambridge Press.

The Gutenberg press was much more efficient than manual copying and still was largely
unchanged in the eras of John Baskerville and Giambattista Bodoni, over 300 years later. By
1800, Lord Stanhope had constructed a press completely from cast iron, reducing the force
required by 90% while doubling the size of the printed area. While Stanhope's "mechanical
theory" had improved the efficiency of the press, it still was only capable of 250 sheets per
hour. German printer Friedrich Koenig would be the first to design a non-manpowered
machine—using steam. Having moved to London in 1804, Koenig soon met Thomas
Bensley and secured financial support for his project in 1807. Patented in 1810, Koenig had
designed a steam press "much like a hand press connected to a steam engine. The first
production trial of this model occurred in April 1811.

Compared to woodblock printing, movable type pagesetting was quicker and more durable
for alphabetic scripts. The metal type pieces were more durable and the lettering was more
uniform, leading to typography and fonts. The high quality and relatively low price of the
Gutenberg Bible (1455) established the superiority of movable type, and printing presses
rapidly spread across Europe, leading up to the Renaissance, and later all around the world.
Today, practically all movable type printing ultimately derives from Gutenberg's movable
type printing, which is often regarded as the most important invention of the second
millennium.

Precursors to movable type

Letterpunch

Movable type traces its origins to the punches used to make coins: the reverse face of a
Tetradrachm Greek coin from Athens, 5th century BC, featuring letters and the owl symbol
of Athena.

The technique of imprinting multiple copies of symbols or glyphs with a master type punch
made of hard metal first developed around 3000 BC in ancient Sumer. Bricks for buildings
and bars or ingots of precious metal were imprinted with a distinctive stamped design; the
act of stamping the ingots certified them as currency by the power of the authority
symbolized by the type image. These metal punch types can be seen as precursors of the
letter punches adapted in later millennia to printing with movable metal type. Cylinder seals
were also used to "sign" documents and mark objects as the owner's property.

By 650 BC the ancient Greeks were using larger diameter punches to imprint small page
images onto coins and tokens. Cylinder seals were a related form of early typography
capable of printing small page designs in relief (cameo) on wax or clay—a miniature
forerunner of rotogravure printing used by wealthy individuals to seal and certify
documents.
The designs of the artists who made the first coin punches were stylized with a degree of
skill that could not be mistaken for common handiwork—salient and very specific types
designed to be reproduced ad infinitum. Unlike the first typefaces used to print books in the
13th century, coin types were neither combined or printed with ink on paper, but "published"
in metal—a more durable medium—and survived in substantial numbers. As the portable
face of ruling authority, coins were a compact form of standardized knowledge issued in
large editions, an early mass medium that stabilized trade and civilization throughout the
Mediterranean world of antiquity.

History of movable type

Prior to the development of metal movable type, most printing was done using blocks carved
from wood. Woodblock printing was used extensively in East Asia, and created the world's
first print culture.

Wooden movable type

Yuan dynasty woodblock edition of a Chinese play

A revolving table typecase with individual movable type characters arranged primarily by
rhyming scheme, from Wang Zhen's book of agriculture published in 1313
Main article: History of typography in East Asia

Wooden movable type was first developed around 1040 AD by Bi Sheng(毕昇) (990–1051),
as described by the Chinese scholar Shen Kuo (1031–1095), but was abandoned in favour of
clay movable types due to uneveness of the movable wooden type after soaked in ink, also
due to the presence of wood grains.[8] In 1298, Wang Zhen, a governmental official of
Jingde, Anhui province, China, re-invented a method of making movable wooden types. He
made more than 30,000 wooden movable types and printed 100 copies of Records of Jingde
County (旌德县志), a book of more than 60,000 Chinese characters. Soon afterwards, he
summarized his invention in his book A method of making moveable wooden types for
printing books. Although the wooden type was more durable under the mechanical rigors of
handling, repeated printing wore the character faces down, and the types could only be
replaced by carving new pieces. This system was later enhanced by pressing wooden blocks
into sand and casting metal types from the depression in copper, bronze, iron or tin.[9] The
set of wafer-like metal stamp types could be assembled to form pages, inked, and page
impressions taken from rubbings on cloth or paper.

A particular difficulty posed the logistical problems of handling the several thousand
characters whose command is required for full literacy in Chinese language. In spite of these
shortcomings, wooden movable types were used continually in China. Even as late as 1733,
a 2300 page volume, 《武英殿聚珍版丛书》, was printed with the system on order of the
Yongzheng Emperor.

Ceramic movable type

The first known movable type system for printing was created in China around 1040 AD by
Bi Sheng (990–1051).[9] Bi Sheng's type was made of baked clay. As described by the
Chinese scholar Shen Kuo (1031–1095):

When he wished to print, he took an iron frame and set it on the iron plate. In this he
placed the types, set close together. When the frame was full, the whole made one
 solid block of type. He then placed it near the fire to warm it. When the paste [at the
back] was slightly melted, he took a smooth board and pressed it over the surface, so
that the block of type became as even as a whetstone.
For each character there were several types, and for certain common characters
there were twenty or more types each, in order to be prepared for the repetition of
characters on the same page. When the characters were not in use he had them
arranged with paper labels, one label for each rhyme-group, and kept them in
wooden cases.[10]
If one were to print only two or three copies, this method would be neither simple
nor easy. But for printing hundreds or thousands of copies, it was marvelously
quick. As a rule he kept two forms going. While the impression was being made from
the one form, the type was being put in place on the other. When the printing of the
one form was finished, the other was then ready. In this way the two forms
alternated and the printing was done with great rapidity.[11]

In 1193, Zhou Bida, an officer of Southern Song Dynasty, made a set of clay movable type
method according to the method described by Shen Kuo in his Dream Pool Essays, and
printed his book Notes of The Jade Hall 《玉堂杂记》.[12]

As late as 1844 there were still books printed in China with clay movable types. [13] However,
Bi Sheng's fragile clay types were not practical for large-scale printing.[14]

Metal movable type in Korea

Jikji, "Selected Teachings of Buddhist Sages and Son Masters", the earliest known book
printed with movable metal type, 1377. Bibliothèque Nationale de Paris.

Transition from wood type to metal type occurred in 1234 during the Goryeo Dynasty of
Korea and is credited to Choe Yun-ui. A set of ritual books, Sangjeong Gogeum Yemun were
printed with the movable metal type in 1234.[15][16] Examples of this metal type are on
display in the Asian Reading Room of the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.[17] The
oldest extant movable metal print book is the Jikji, printed in Korea in 1377.

The techniques for bronze casting, used at the time for making coins (as well as bells and
statues) were adapted to making metal type. The following description of the Korean font
casting process was recorded by the Joseon dynasty scholar Song Hyon (15th c.):

At first, one cuts letters in beech wood. One fills a trough level with fine sandy [clay]
of the reed-growing seashore. Wood-cut letters are pressed into the sand, then the
impressions become negative and form letters [molds]. At this step, placing one
trough together with another, one pours the molten bronze down into an opening.
The fluid flows in, filling these negative molds, one by one becoming type. Lastly,
one scrapes and files off the irregularities, and piles them up to be arranged.

A potential solution to the linguistic and cultural bottleneck that held back movable type in
Korea for two hundred years appeared in the early 15th century—a generation before
Gutenberg would begin working on his own movable type invention in Europe—when King
Sejong the Great devised a simplified alphabet of 24 characters (hangul) for use by the
common people, which could have made the typecasting and compositing process more
feasible. But Sejong's brilliant creation did not receive the attention it deserved. Adoption of
the new alphabet was stifled by the inertia of Korea's cultural elite, who were "...appalled at
the idea of losing Chinese, the badge of their elitism."

Proliferation of movable type was also obstructed by a "Confucian prohibition on the

commercialization of printing" restricted the distribution of books produced using the new
method to the government.[19] The technique was restricted to use by the royal foundry for
official state publications only, where the focus was on reprinting Chinese classics lost in
1126 when Korea's libraries and palaces had perished in a conflict between dynasties.

In the early fifteenth century, however, the Koreans invented a form of movable type that
has been described by the French scholar Henri-Jean Martin as '[extremely similar] to
Gutenberg's'; the Western invention may have been stimulated by what had happened in the
East.
A page from bronze movable type book by Hua Sui, printed in 1490

Metal Movable type elsewhere in Asia

During the Mongol Empire (1206–1405), printing using movable type spread from China to
Central Asia. The Uyghurs of Central Asia used movable type, their script type adopted
from the Mongol language, some with Chinese words printed between the pages, a strong
evidence that the books were printed in China.

In the 1298 book Zao Huozi Yinshufa ( 造 活 字 印 书 法 / 造 活 字 印 書 法 ) of the Chinese

official Wang Zhen, there is mention of tin movable type, but this was largely experimental.
[22]
It was not until the In Ming Dynasty (1368–1644 AD) that metal movable type was
successfully employed, and invented separately from Korea. Successful use of metal
movable type in China was first employed by Hua Sui in 1490 AD with his bronze type.

In 1574 the massive 1000 volume encyclopedia Imperial Readings of the Taiping Era 《太
平御览》/《太平御覧》 were printed with bronze movable type.

In1725，the Qing Dynasty government made 250,000 bronze movable type characters and
printed 64 sets of the encyclopedic Gujin Tushu Jicheng Complete Collection of
Illustrations and Writings from the Earliest to Current Times 《古今图书集成》/《古今圖
書集成》. Each set consisted of 5040 volumes, making a total of 322,560 volumes printed
using movable type.

Metal movable type in Europe

Main article: History of western typography

Johannes Gutenberg of Mainz is acknowledged as the first to invent a metal movable type
printing system in Europe. Gutenberg was a goldsmith familiar with techniques of cutting
punches for making coins from moulds. Between 1436 and 1450 he developed hardware and
techniques for casting letters from matrices using a device called the hand mould.[24]
Gutenberg's key invention and contribution to movable type printing in Europe, the hand
mould was the first practical means of making cheap copies of letterpunches in the vast
quantities needed to print complete books, making the movable type printing process a
viable enterprise.

Before Gutenberg, books were copied out by hand on scrolls and paper, or printed from
hand-carved wooden blocks. It was extremely time-consuming, even a small book could
take months to complete, and the carved letters or blocks were very flimsy and the
susceptibility of wood to ink gave such blocks a limited lifespan.

Gutenberg and his associates developed oil-based inks ideally suited to printing with a press
on paper, and the first Latin typefaces. His method of casting type may have been different
from the hand mould used in subsequent decades. Detailed analysis of the type used in his
42-line Bible has revealed irregularities in some of the characters that cannot be attributed to
ink spread or type wear under the pressure of the press. Scholars conjecture that the type
pieces may have been cast from a series of matrices made with a series of individual stroke
punches, producing many different versions of the same glyph.[25] It has also been suggested
that the method used by Gutenberg involved using a single punch to make a mould, but the
mould was such that the process of taking the type out disturbed the casting, creating
variants and anomalies, and that the punch-matrix system came into use possibly around the
1470s.[26] This raises the possibility that the development of movable type in the West may
have been progressive rather than a single innovation.

Gutenberg's movable type printing system spread rapidly across Europe, from the single
Mainz press in 1457 to 110 presses by 1480, of which 50 were in Italy. Venice quickly
became the center of typographic and printing activity. Significant were the contributions of
Nicolas Jenson, Francesco Griffo, Aldus Manutius, and other printers of late 15th-century
Europe. Despite some conjectures, there is no evidence that movable type from the East ever
reached Europe.
 The historical impact of movable type in China

In ancient China, printing had been practiced for a long time, but the method generally used
was what is known as "block printing", the carved woodblock being used to print a single
page of a specific text. This method was appropriate for cultures which used thousands of
ideograms rather than an alphabet of 20 to 30 letters.[28]

Movable type, invented by Bi Sheng, a common-person inventor in Beisong Dynasty,

overcame the shortcomings of woodblock printing. As long as sufficient type fonts were
prepared, the printing plate could be pieced together at any time, saving a great deal of time.
After printing, the printing plate could be torn apart. The type fonts could be used
repeatedly, and they took little room so it was easy to store them. Thus movable type stood
out with its advantages.

Bi Sheng, a common intellectual, summarized the abundant experience of woodblock

printing and conducted countless experiments before completing cement type font and set
typing in Qingli Years, ruled by Songrenzong (1041–1048AD). His achievement completed
one significant revolution in printing history.

According to some archaeologists, this was the beginning of typography in China, but it
failed to become widely used in China. Even though Bi Sheng improved the efficiency of
printing with movable type, his achievement did not catch the attention of the ruler nor the
society of the time. Even after his death, movable type was not widespread and the cement
type fonts were lost, although his printing technology was passed on. For this reason, the
Chinese invention of movable type in the eleventh century had little impact and movable
type did not spread through the world until Gutenberg’s invention.The French essayist
Michel de Montaigne (1533–92) told his readers that the Chinese had already enjoyed the
benefits of printing for 'a thousand years.

Printing press

Printing press from 1811, photographed in Munich, Germany.

A printing press is a mechanical device for applying pressure to an inked surface resting
upon a medium (such as paper or cloth), thereby transferring an image. The mechanical
systems involved were first assembled in Germany by the goldsmith Johannes Gutenberg
around 1440, based on existing screw-presses used to press cloth, grapes, etc. and possibly
prints.[1] Gutenberg was the first in Western Europe to develop a printing press.

During the Renaissance era, printing methods based on Gutenberg's printing press spread
rapidly throughout first Europe and then the rest of the world. It eventually replaced most
versions of block printing, making it the most used format of modern movable type, until
being superseded by the advent of offset printing.

History

Finely crafted books—like the 1259 Song Dynasty Bencao (materia medica) shown here—
were produced by woodblock in China as early as the ninth century, the earliest known
being the Diamond Sutra.

The overall invention of Gutenberg's printing method depended for some of its elements
upon a diffusion of technologies from China (East Asia), primarily the Chinese inventions
and innovations of paper, in addition to a growing demand by the general European public
for the lower cost paper books, instead of the exorbitantly expensive parchment books. By
1424, Cambridge University library owned only 122 books—each of which had a value
equal to a farm or vineyard.[3] The demand for these books was driven by rising literacy
amongst the middle class and students in Western Europe. At this time, the Renaissance was
still in its early stages and the populace was gradually removing the monopoly the clergy
had held on literacy.

While woodblock printing had arrived in Europe at approximately the same time paper did,
this method was not as suitable for literary communication as it was in the east.[3] Block
printing is well-suited to the ancient written Chinese because character alignment is not
critical, but the existence of over 100,000 ancient characters and hieroglyphic symbols made
the ancient Chinese movable type technology somewhat inefficient and economically
impractical affecting the profits of the ancient Chinese book publishers. With the Latin
alphabet, however, the need for precise alignment and a much simpler character set
positioned movable type as a great advance for the west.
The use of a press was a key technological difference provided European book publishers
increased profits over their ancient Chinese counterparts—the screw-based presses used in
wine and olive oil production. Attaining mechanical sophistication in approximately the year
1000, devices for applying pressure on a flat-plane were common in Europe.

Offset press (1870s)

Offset printing is a widely used printing technique where the inked image is
transferred (or "offset") from a plate to a rubber blanket, then to the printing surface.
When used in combination with the lithographic process, which is based on the
repulsion of oil and water, the offset technique employs a flat (planographic) image
carrier on which the image to be printed obtains ink from ink rollers, while the non-
printing area attracts a film of water, keeping the non-printing areas ink-free.

Gutenberg's press

In this woodblock from 1568, the printer at left is removing a page from the press while the
one at right inks the text-blocks

Johannes Gutenberg's work on the printing press began in approximately 1436 when he
partnered with Andreas Dritzehn—a man he had previously instructed in gem-cutting—and
Andreas Heilmann, owner of a paper mill.[3] However, it was not until a 1439 lawsuit against
Gutenberg that an official record exists; witnesses' testimony discussed Gutenberg's types,
an inventory of metals (including lead), and his type molds.

Others in Europe were also developing movable type at this time, including goldsmith
Procopius Waldfoghel of France and Laurens Janszoon Coster of the Netherlands.[3]
However, they are not known to have contributed specific advances to the printing press.

Having previously worked as a professional goldsmith, Gutenberg made skillful use of the
knowledge of metals he had learned as a craftsman. He was the first to make type from an
alloy of lead, tin, and antimony, which was critical for producing durable type that produced
high-quality printed books and proved to be more suitable for printing than the clay, wooden
or bronze types invented in East Asia. To create these lead types, Gutenberg used what some
considered his most ingenious invention, a special matrix enabling the quick and precise
moulding of new type blocks from a uniform template.

Gutenberg is also credited with the introduction of an oil-based ink which was more durable
than the previously used water-based inks. As printing material he used both vellum and
paper, the latter having been introduced in Europe a few centuries earlier from China by way
of the Arabs.

In the Gutenberg Bible, Gutenberg made a trial of coloured printing for a few of the page
headings, present only in some copies.[6] A later work, the Mainz Psalter of 1453,
presumably designed by Gutenberg but published under the imprint of his successors Johann
Fust and Peter Schöffer, had elaborate red and blue printed initials.

Letterpress printing

Letterpress printing is a term for the relief printing of text and image using a press with a
"type-high bed" printing press and movable type, in which a reversed, raised surface is inked
and then pressed into a sheet of paper to obtain a positive right-reading image. It was the
normal form of printing text in the west from its invention by Johannes Gutenberg in the
mid-15th century until the 19th century and remained in wide use for books and other uses
until the second half of the 20th century. In addition to the direct impression of inked
movable type onto paper or another receptive surface, the term Letterpress can also refer to
the direct impression of inked printmaking blocks such as photo-etched zinc "cuts" (plates),
linoleum blocks, wood engravings, etc., using such a press.

In the 21st century, commercial Letterpress has been revived by the use of 'water-wash'
photopolymer plates which are adhered to a near-type-high base to produce a relief printing
surface typically from digitally-rendered art and typography.
 History

A letterpress

Early Chinese woodblock printing used characters or images carved in relief from before
750 CE and this form of printing was widespread throughout Eurasia as a means of printing
patterns on textiles. Printing of images, first on cloth, then from about 1400 on paper, was
practised in Europe. In about 1440, Johannes Gutenberg (among others) is credited with the
invention of movable type printing from individually-cast, reusable letters set together in a
form (frame). This had previously been invented in Asia, but the two inventions were
probably not connected. He also invented a wooden printing press, based on the existent
wine press, where the type surface was inked and paper laid carefully on top by hand, then
slid under a padded surface and pressure applied from above by a large threaded screw.
Later metal presses used a knuckle and lever arrangement instead of the screw, but the
principle was the same.

With the advent of industrial mechanisation, the inking was carried out by rollers which
would pass over the face of the type and move out of the way onto a separate ink plate
where they would pick up a fresh film of ink for the following sheet. Meanwhile, a sheet of
paper was slid against a hinged platen (see image) which was then rapidly pressed onto the
type and swung back again to have the sheet removed and the next sheet inserted (during
which operation the now freshly-inked rollers would run over the type again). Fully-
automated, 20th-century presses, such as the Kluge and "Original" Heidelberg Platen (the
"Windmill"), incorporated pneumatic feed and delivery of the sheet.

Industrial-scale use in the 20th century

Rotary presses were used for high-speed work. In the oscillating press, the form slid under a
drum around which each sheet of paper got wrapped for the impression, sliding back under
the inking rollers while the paper was removed and a new sheet inserted. In a newspaper
press, a papier-mâché mixture (flong) was used to make a mould of the entire form of type,
then dried and bent, and a curved metal plate cast against it. The plates were clipped to a
rotating drum and could print against a continuous reel of paper at the enormously high
speeds required for overnight newspaper production.
 Rotary Letterpress

The invention of ultra-violet curing inks has helped keep rotary letterpress alive in areas like
self-adhesive labels. There is also still a large amount of flexographic printing, a similar
process, which uses rubber plates to print on curved or awkward surfaces, and a lesser
amount of relief printing from huge wooden letters for lower-quality poster work.

Rotary letterpress machine are still used on a wide scale for printing of self-adhesive and
non self-adhesive labels, tube laminate, cup stock, etc. The printing quality achieved by the
modern Letterpress machines with UV curing is on par with flexo presses. Several
converters the world over still swear by these rugged machines. It is more convenient and
user friendly than a flexo press. Water-wash photopolymer plates are used which are as good
as any solvent-washed flexo plate. Today even CtP (computer-to-plate) plates are available
making it a full-fledged, modern printing process. Because there is no Anilox roller in the
process, the make ready time also goes down when compared to a flexo press. Inking is
controlled by keys very much similar to an offset press. UV inks for Letterpress are in paste
form, unlike flexo. There are various manufacturers of UV rotary Letterpress machines, viz.
Taiyo Kikai, KoPack, Gallus, etc. which offer various other online functions like hot/cold
foil stamping, rotary die cutting, Flatbed die cutting, Sheeting, Rotary Screen Printing,
Adhesive side printing, InkJet numbering, etc. The Central Impression presses are more
popular than inline presses due to their ease of registration and simple design. Printing of up
to nine colours plus varnish is possible with various online converting processes.

Rotary printing press

A rotary printing press is a printing press in which the impressions are curved around a
cylinder so that the printing can be done on long continuous rolls of paper, cardboard,
plastic, or a large number of other substrates. Rotary drum printing was invented by Richard
March Hoe in 1847, and then significantly improved by William Bullock in 1863.

Lithography (1796)
Lithography press for printing maps in Munich.

stone used for lithography print with a Princeton University motif (Collection: Princeton
University Library, NJ)
Main article: Lithography

Invented by Bavarian author Aloys Senefelder in 1796, lithography is a method for printing
on a smooth surface. Lithography is a printing process that uses chemical processes to create
an image. For instance, the positive part of an image would be a hydrophobic chemical,
while the negative image would be water. Thus, when the plate is introduced to a compatible
ink and water mixture, the ink will adhere to the positive image and the water will clean the
negative image. This allows for a relatively flat print plate which allows for much longer
runs than the older physical methods of imaging (e.g., embossing or engraving). High-
volume lithography is used today to produce posters, maps, books, newspapers, and
packaging — just about any smooth, mass-produced item with print and graphics on it. Most
books, indeed all types of high-volume text, are now printed using offset lithography.

In offset lithography, which depends on photographic processes, flexible aluminum,

polyester, mylar or paper printing plates are used in place of stone tablets. Modern printing
plates have a brushed or roughened texture and are covered with a photosensitive emulsion.
A photographic negative of the desired image is placed in contact with the emulsion and the
plate is exposed to ultraviolet light. After development, the emulsion shows a reverse of the
negative image, which is thus a duplicate of the original (positive) image. The image on the
plate emulsion can also be created through direct laser imaging in a CTP (Computer-To-
Plate) device called a platesetter. The positive image is the emulsion that remains after
imaging. For many years, chemicals have been used to remove the non-image emulsion, but
now plates are available that do not require chemical processing.

Chromolithography

Calvert Lithographic Company, Detroit, MI. Uncle Sam Supplying the World with Berry
Brothers Hard Oil Finish, c. 1880. Noel Wisdom Chromolithograph Collection, Special
Collections Department, The University of South Florida Tampa Library.

Chromolithography was the first method for making true multi-color prints. Earlier
attempts at polychromed printing relied on hand-coloring. The type of color printing
stemmed from the process of lithography, and it includes all types of lithography that are
printed in color. It replaced coloring prints by hand, and eventually served as a replica of a
real painting. Lithographers sought to find a way to print on flat surfaces with the use of
chemicals instead of relief or intaglio printing. Depending on the amount of colors present, a
chromolithograph could take months to produce. To make what was once referred to as a
“’chromo’”, a lithographer, with a finished painting in front of him, gradually built and
corrected the print to look as much as possible like the painting in front of him, sometimes
using dozens of layers. The process can be very time consuming and cumbersome contingent
upon the skill of the lithographer.

The technique for using color in printing was invented in 1796 in Germany. Considering the
fact that it stemmed from lithography, there have been debates over whether
chromolithography was created by Alois Senefelder, the same person who came up with
printing by way of lithography. Senefelder introduced colored lithography in his 1818
Vollstaendiges Lehrbuch der Steindruckerey (A Complete Course of Lithography , and in the
work, Senefelder told of his plans to print using color and he also explained the colors he
wished to be able to print someday. Although Senefelder recorded ideas on
chromolithography, it turns out that other countries besides Germany, such as France and
England, were also heavily involved in trying to find a new way to print in color. Godefroy
Engelmann of Mulhouse proved to be one of the few searching for ways to produce colored
printed images when he was awarded his patent on chromolithography in July 1837. Even
after Engelmann received his award, disputes over whether chromolithography was already
being used continued to rise. Some sources point to the idea that chromolithography was
already being used in areas of printing such as the production of playing cards.

Screenprinting (1907)
Screenprinting has its origins in simple stencilling, most notably of the Japanese form
(katazome), used who cut banana leaves and inserted ink through the design holes on
textiles, mostly for clothing. This was taken up in France. The modern screenprinting
process originated from patents taken out by Samuel Simon in 1907 in England. This idea
was then adopted in San Francisco, California, by John Pilsworth in 1914 who used
screenprinting to form multicolor prints in a subtractive mode, differing from screenprinting
as it is done today.

Woodcut

Woodcut is a relief printing artistic technique in printmaking in which an image is carved

into the surface of a block of wood, with the printing parts remaining level with the surface
while the non-printing parts are removed, typically with gouges. The areas to show 'white'
are cut away with a knife or chisel, leaving the characters or image to show in 'black' at the
original surface level. The block is cut along the grain of the wood (unlike wood engraving
where the block is cut in the end-grain). In Europe beechwood was most commonly used; in
Japan, a special type of cherry wood was popular.

Woodcut first appeared in ancient China. From 6th century onward, woodcut icons became
popular and especially flourished in Buddhist texts. Since the 10th century, woodcut pictures
appeared in inbetweenings of Chinese literature, and some banknotes, such as Jiaozi
(currency). Woodcut New Year picture are also very popular with the Chinese.

In China and Tibet printed images mostly remained tied as illustrations to accompanying
text until the modern period. The earliest woodblock printed book, the Diamond Sutra
contains a large image as frontispiece, and many Buddhist texts contain some images. Later
some notable Chinese artists designed woodcuts for books, the individual print develop in
China in the form of New Year picture as an art-form in the way it did in Europe and Japan.

In Europe, Woodcut is the oldest technique used for old master prints, developing about
1400, by using on paper existing techniques for printing on cloth. The explosion of sales of
cheap woodcuts in the middle of the century led to a fall in standards, and many popular
prints were very crude. The development of hatching followed on rather later than in
engraving. Michael Wolgemut was significant in making German woodcut more
sophisticated from about 1475, and Erhard Reuwich was the first to use cross-hatching (far
harder to do than in engraving or etching). Both of these produced mainly book-illustrations,
as did various Italian artists who were also raising standards there at the same period. At the
end of the century Albrecht Dürer brought the Western woodcut to a level that has never
been surpassed, and greatly increased the status of the single-leaf (ie an image sold
separately) woodcut.
 Engraving

Engraving is the practice of incising a design onto a hard, flat surface, by cutting grooves
into it. The result may be a decorated object in itself, as when silver, gold or steel are
engraved, or may provide an intaglio printing plate, of copper or another metal, for printing
images on paper, which are called engravings. Engraving was a historically important
method of producing images on paper, both in artistic printmaking, and also for commercial
reproductions and illustrations for books and magazines. It has long been replaced by
photography in its commercial applications and, partly because of the difficulty of learning
the technique, is much less common in printmaking, where it has been largely replaced by
etching and other techniques. Other terms often used for engravings are copper-plate
engraving and Line engraving. These should all mean exactly the same, but especially in the
past were often used very loosely to cover several printmaking techniques, so that many so-
called engravings were in fact produced by totally different techniques, such as etching.

In antiquity, the only engraving that could be carried out is evident in the shallow grooves
found in some jewellery after the beginning of the 1st Millennium B.C. The majority of so-
called engraved designs on ancient gold rings or other items were produced by chasing or
sometimes a combination of lost-wax casting and chasing.

In the European Middle Ages goldsmiths used engraving to decorate and inscribe
metalwork. It is thought that they began to print impressions of their designs to record them.
From this grew the engraving of copper printing plates to produce artistic images on paper,
known as old master prints in Germany in the 1430s. Italy soon followed. Many early
engravers came from a goldsmithing background. The first and greatest period of the
engraving was from about 1470 to 1530, with such masters as Martin Schongauer , Albrecht
Dürer , and Lucas van Leiden.

Halftoning

Halftone is the reprographic technique that simulates continuous tone imagery through the
use of equally spaced dots of varying size. Halftone' can also be used to refer specifically to
the image that is produced by this process.

The idea of halftone printing originates from William Fox Talbot. In the early 1850s he
suggested using "photographic screens or veils" in connection with a photographic intaglio
process.

Several different kinds of screens were proposed during the following decades, but the first
half-tone photo-engraving process was invented by Canadians George-Édouard Desbarats
and William Leggo Jr. On October 30, 1869, Desbarats published the Canadian Illustrated
News which became the world’s first periodical to successfully employ this photo-
mechanical technique; featuring a full page half-tone image of His Royal Highness Prince
Arthur, from a photograph by Notman. Ambitious to exploit a much larger circulation,
Debarats and Leggo went to New York and launched the New York Daily Graphic in March
1873, which became the world’s first illustrated daily.

The first truly successful commercial method was patented by Frederic Ives of Philadelphia
in 1881. But although he found a way of breaking up the image into dots of varying sizes he
did not make use of a ===screen===. In 1882 the German George Meisenbach patented a
halftone process in England. His invention was based on the previous ideas of Berchtold and
Swan. He used single lined screens which were turned during exposure to produce cross-
lined effects. He was the first to achieve any commercial success with relief halftones.

Historical background of printing

(timeline)

Before 15,000 B.C. - Prehistoric man first painted art on the walls of his caves in
what is now northern France and Southern Spain.

5,000 B.C. - The earliest Babylonian writings appeared.

3,500 B.C. - Papyrus came into use as a writing surface.

3,000 B.C. - Clay stamps were used to validate written messages. Clay tablets were also
used as a writing surface.

750 B.C. - Greek inscriptions were carved into stone slabs with a hammer and chisel.

200 B.C. - A method of refining parchment from sheepskin was discovered - supposedly
by the King of Pergamum. The name "parchment" is derived from "Pergamum."
 105 - Ts’ai Lun, a Chinese monk, announced the invention of paper to Emperor Chien
Ch’u. The first paper was made from mulberry and other barks, fish nets, hemp and rags.

400 - True ink was invented from lamp-black and used in China for brush writing and
later for woodblock printing.

450 - Seals were printed with true ink. This was the first instance of actual printing
with an incised stamp upon paper.

650 The Chinese Buddhist monks first experimented with the duplication of images by
rubbings, charm blocks and stencils. This was the forerunner of the true block
printing of the 9th century.

618 to 906: T’ang Dynasty - the first printing is done in China using ink on carved
wooden blocks begins to make multiple transfers of an image to paper.

868 The Diamond Sutra, the first printed book, was printed. It is a roll sixteen feet in
length and was the original form of Chinese book printing.

1035 Waste paper was first repulped and used as a material for papermaking. The birth of
recycling.

1041 Movable type was invented in China by Pi Sheng, but because the Chinese
characters did not lend themselves to the technique, the invention had little use in that
country. Rather than an alphabet, the Chinese used thousands of "symbols." That
made for a pretty difficult job in sorting their "type."

1241: Koreans print books using movable type.

1282 - Italy became the first European country to use watermarks. From the
period between the 13th and 16th centuries, over 16,000 individual watermarks
have been identified.

1298 . - Marco Polo reported that during his trip to China, he witnessed the
printing of paper money.
 1300: The first use of wooden type in China.

1309 - Paper was first used in England.

1309: Europeans first make paper. However, the Chinese and Egyptians had started
making paper centuries previous.

1338: First papermill opened in France.

1390: First papermill opened in Germany.

1392: Foundries that can produce bronze type are opened in Korea.

1403 - The Royal type foundry in Korea produced the first movable type in that
country. The Koreans found the process very practical and used it extensively. It was more
practical for them than the Chinese because they had less than 100 characters in their
alphabet.

1423 - The earliest dated European woodblock print. It shows St. Christopher
bearing the infant Christ.

1452: In Europe, metal plates are first used in printing. Gutenberg begins printing the
Bible which he finishes in 1456.

1454 - The earliest and first dated document printed from movable type in
Europe. It is a 30-line indulgence granted by Pope Nicolaus V to those who
donated money for the struggle against the Turks. This is attributed to Gutenberg.

1455 - The 42-line Bible known as The Gutenberg Bible was completed by Fust
and Schoeffer. This was the first major effort in Europe using movable type. Gutenberg
started the work, then lost his company when he was unable to pay loans made by Fust.

1462 . - The first printer’s mark or "device" was used by Fust and Schoeffer of
Mainz, Germany. This printer’s mark is now the official logo of the International
Association of Printing House Craftsmen, or the Craftsmen’s Club.
 1457: First color printing by Fust and Schoeffer.

1465: Drypoint engravings invented by Germans.

1476: William Caxton begins using a Gutenberg printing press in England.

1477: Intaglio is first used for book illustration for a Flemish book called Il Monte
Sancto di Dio.

1477 William Caxton brought the art of printing to England.

1469 - The first use of Roman type in printing.

1495: First papermill opened in England.

1550: Wallpaper introduced in Europe.

1501: Italic type first used.

1501 - Aldus Manutius introduced his famous series of classics. It was in these that
the italic form of type was first used. These were history’s first "pocket books."

1540 - The first printing was done in North America when Juan Pablos printed
Manuel de Aldutos. Pablos is believed to have printed an earlier book but no trace of it has
turned up.

1563 - By Letters of Patent of Charles IX of France, it was forbidden for any

French printer to print without permission under penalty of being hanged or
strangled. More than one printer found himself at the end of a noose for the violation of
this law.

1605: First weekly newspaper published in Antwerp.

1611: King James Bible published.

 1639 - Elizabeth Glover set up the first printing plant in the Colonies. Her pressman,
Stephen Daye (or possibly Daye’s son, Matthew) printed the first book in the Colonies,
when the Cambridge (Mass.) Press printed The Whole Booke of Psalmes, more
commonly known as The Bay Psalm Book. Only five copies are known to exist.

1655 - The first true English language newspaper, and the oldest existing
newspaper, The London Gazette was published. The first 23 issues were called
The Oxford Gazette. After the plague, when the Crown moved back to
London from Oxford, the newspaper moved also.

1660: Mezzotint invented in Germany.

1691: First papermill opened in the American colonies.

1702: Multi-colored engraving invented by German Jakob Le Blon. The first

English language daily newspaper is published called the Daily Courant.

1702 - History’s first daily newspaper was established when Elizabeth Mallett issued The
Daily Courant in England.

1711 - Addison and Steele first issued The Spectator, considered to be one of
journalism’s finest accomplishments.

1724 - Benjamin Franklin arrived in London and obtained employment as a

printer’s apprentice in the shop of Samuel Palmer.

1725: In Scotland stereotyping invented by William Ged.

1728 - William Get perfected stereotype printing.

1731 - Edward Cave brought out his highly successful periodical, The Gentleman’s
Magazine. This was the first publication to use the name "magazine" in its title.

1735 - The trial of John Peter Zenger, where he was found not guilty of libel. This
was the first time truth was used as a defense against libel. The trial defined the fact that
the truth cannot be considered libelous.

1768 - Abel Buell was the first to cut and cast type in the American Colonies.

1769 - The first printing press made by an American craftsman was the work of
Isaac Doolittle, a clock and watchmaker.

1794-98? - Aloys Senefelder invented the planographic method of printing known as

lithography.

1800: Iron printing presses invented.

1812 Konig built the first automatic printing press and installed it in the offices of
The London Times.

1815 Samuel Bangs first set up his printing press on Galveston Island - making him the
first printer in Texas. He was captured by the Mexicans and sent to Mexico City where he
became that country’s public printer.

1819: Rotary printing press invented by Napier.

1824 Wlliam Pickering introduced his "Diamond Classics," the first books to be
bound in bookcloth. Prior to this time, if you purchased a book from a printer, you got the
folded signatures wrapped in paper. You would take these to your favorite bookbinder
for binding.

1829: Embossed printing invented by Louis Braille.

1833 - The first mass produced newspaper in America, The New York Sun, was issued.
The publication sold for one penny, and thus the name, "the penny press.

1841: Type-composing machine invented.

1844: Electrotyping invented.

1846: Cylinder press invented by Richard Hoe. Cylinder press can print 8,000 sheets an
hour.

1863: Rotary web-fed letterpress invented by William Bullock.

1863 Thomas Nast, the famous illustrator, introduced the image we now have of Santa
Claus with his front page woodcut in Harper’s Weekly. Nast also created the image of the
Republican Elephant, Democratic Donkey, and Tammany Tiger, as well as the image we
now use for Uncle Sam.

1865: Web offset press can print on both sides of paper at once.

1870: Paper is now mass-manufactured from wood pulp.

1878: Photogravure printing invented by Karl Klic.

1880 Stephen Horgan printed the famous illustration "Shantytown" in the

New York Daily Graphic. This was the first halftone photograph printed

1886 Ottmar Mergenthaler set up the first successful automatic typesetting machine in
the offices of The New York Tribune.

1886: Linotype composing machineinvented by Ottmar Mergenthaler.

1890: Mimeograph machine introduced.

1891: Printing presses can now print and fold 90,000 4-page papers an hour. Diazotype
invented (print photographs on fabric).

1892: 4-color rotary press invented.

1902 Willis Carrier, while trying to build a dehumidifier for a New York printer,
accidently discovered air conditioning. The air conditioning was a byproduct of the
dehumidifier.

1904: Offset lithography becomes common. The first comic book is published.

1907: Commercial silk screening invented.

1947: Phototypesetting made practical

1952 With the printing of The Wonderful World of Insects, electronics had at
last come to the printing plant. This book was the first work which used the phototype
process to commercially set type.

1961 - The introduction of the first Xerox machine.

 1980 - The first operating 15th century style printing plant and type foundry on the
North American continent opened at a Texas renaissance theme park by this author as an
educational exhibit. That press and type foundry is now on display at the Kwik Kopy
(ICED) world headquarters in Cypress, Texas.

1980 - The advent of the Internet.

1999 inkol.com opens its doors to provide inexpensive user-friendly solutions to

easily publish information on the Internet.

Clasification of Printing Process

Major printing process

There are nine main types of printing processes:

offset lithography - what we are exploring in this article

engraving - think fine stationery
thermography - raised printing, used in stationery
reprographics - copying and duplicating
digital printing - limited now, but the technology is exploding
letterpress - the original Guttenberg process (hardly done anymore)
screen - used for T-shirts and billboards
flexography - usually used on packaging, such as can labels
gravure - used for huge runs of magazines and direct-mail catalogs
Offset lithography is the workhorse of printing. Almost every commercial printer does it.
But the quality of the final product is often due to the guidance, expertise and equipment
provided by the printer.
Offset lithography works on a very simple principle: ink and water don't mix. Images (words
and art) are put on plates (see the next section for more on this), which are dampened first by
water, then ink. The ink adheres to the image area, the water to the non-image area. Then the
image is transferred to a rubber blanket, and from the rubber blanket to paper. That's why
the process is called "offset" -- the image does not go directly to the paper from the plates, as
it does in gravure printing.
Offset Lithographic Printing

Lithographic printing is well suited for printing both text and illustrations in short to
medium length runs of up to 1,000,000 impressions. Typical products printed with offset
printing processes include:

• General commercial printing Quick printing

• Newspapers Books
• Business Forms Financial and Legal Documents
• Offset Lithographic Printing Process Overview

Lithography is an "offset" printing technique. Ink is not applied directly from the printing
plate (or cylinder) to the substrate as it is in gravure, flexography and letterpress. Ink is
applied to the printing plate to form the "image" (such as text or artwork to be printed) and
then transferred or "offset to a rubber "blanket". The image on the blanket is then transferred
to the substrate (typically paper or paperboard) to produce the printed product.

On sheet-fed presses, the substrate is fed into the press one sheet at a time at a very high
speed. Web fed presses print on a continuous roll of substrate, or web, which is later cut to
size. There is a total of 3 types of offset printing: non-heatset sheetfed, heatset, and non-
heatset web offset. The difference between heatset and non-heatset is primarily dependent
on the type of ink and how it is dried.

The Lithographic Printing Process

Lithography (from Greek λίθος - lithos, 'stone' + γράφω - graphο, 'to write') is a method for
printing using a stone (lithographic limestone) or a metal plate with a completely smooth
surface. Lithography uses oil or fat and gum arabic to divide the smooth surface into
hydrophilic regions which accept the ink, and hydrophobic regions which reject it and thus
become the background. By contrast, in intaglio printing a plate is engraved, etched or
stippled to make cavities to contain the printing ink, and in woodblock printing and
letterpress ink is applied to the raised surfaces of letters or images.

Invented by Bavarian author Alois Senefelder in 1796, lithography can be used to print text
or artwork onto paper or another suitable material. Most books, indeed all types of high-
volume text, are now printed using offset lithography, the most common form of printing
production. The word "lithography" also refers to photolithography, a microfabrication
technique used to make integrated circuits and microelectromechanical systems, although
those techniques have more in common with etching than with lithography.

The principle of lithography

Lithography stone and mirror-image print of a map of Munich.

Lithography uses simple chemical processes to create an image. For instance, the positive
part of an image would be a hydrophobic, or "water hating" chemical, while the negative
image would be hydrophilic or "water loving". Thus, when the plate is introduced to a
compatible printing ink and water mixture, the ink will adhere to the positive image and the
water will clean the negative image. This allows a flat print plate to be used, enabling much
longer and more detailed print runs than the older physical methods of printing (e.g., intaglio
printing, Letterpress printing).
An example of a 19th century lithograph depicting royal Afghan soldiers of the Durrani
Empire in Afghanistan

Lithography was invented by Alois Senefelder in Bohemia in 1796. In the early days of
lithography, a smooth piece of limestone was used (hence the name "lithography"—"lithos"
(λιθος) is the ancient Greek word for stone). After the oil-based image was put on the
surface, a solution of gum arabic in water was applied, the gum sticking only to the non-oily
surface. During printing, water adhered to the gum arabic surfaces and avoided the oily
parts, while the oily ink used for printing did the opposite.

Lithography on limestone

Lithography works because of the mutual repulsion of oil and water. The image is drawn on
the surface of the print plate with a fat or oil-based medium (hydrophobic), which may be
pigmented to make the drawing visible. A wide range of oil-based media is available, but the
durability of the image on the stone depends on the lipid content of the material being used,
and its ability to withstand water and acid. Following the drawing of the image, an aqueous
solution of gum arabic, weakly acidified with nitric acid HNO3 is applied to the stone. The
function of this solution is to create a hydrophilic layer of calcium nitrate salt, Ca(NO3)2, and
gum arabic on all non-image surfaces. The gum solution penetrates into the pores of the
stone, completely surrounding the original image with a hydrophilic layer that will not
accept the printing ink. Using lithographic turpentine, the printer then removes any excess of
the greasy drawing material, but a hydrophobic molecular film of it remains tightly bonded
to the surface of the stone, rejecting the gum arabic and water, but ready to accept the oily
ink.

When printing, the stone is kept wet with water. Naturally the water is attracted to the layer
of gum and salt created by the acid wash. Printing ink based on drying oils such as linseed
oil and varnish loaded with pigment is then rolled over the surface. The water repels the
greasy ink but the hydrophobic areas left by the original drawing material accept it. When
the hydrophobic image is loaded with ink, the stone and paper are run through a press which
applies even pressure over the surface, transferring the ink to the paper and off the stone.

A 1902 lithograph map (original size 33×24 cm)

Senefelder had experimented in the early 1800s with multicolor lithography; in his 1819
book, he predicted that the process would eventually be perfected and used to reproduce
paintings. Multi-color printing was introduced through a new process developed by
Godefroy Engelmann (France) in 1837 known as Chromolithography. A separate stone was
used for each colour, and a print went through the press separately for each stone. The main
challenge was of course to keep the images aligned (in register). This method lent itself to
images consisting of large areas of flat color, and led to the characteristic poster designs of
this period.

The modern lithographic process

Sea anemones from Ernst Haeckel's Kunstformen der Natur (Artforms of Nature) of 1904

The earliest regular use of lithography for text was in countries using Arabic, Turkish and
similar scripts, where books, especially the Qu'ran, were sometimes printed by lithography
in the nineteenth century, as the links between the characters require compromises when
movable type is used which were considered inappropriate for sacred texts.

High-volume lithography is used today to produce posters, maps, books, newspapers, and
packaging — just about any smooth, mass-produced item with print and graphics on it. Most
books, indeed all types of high-volume text, are now printed using offset lithography.

In offset lithography, which depends on photographic processes, flexible aluminum,

polyester, mylar or paper printing plates are used in place of stone tablets. Modern printing
plates have a brushed or roughened texture and are covered with a photosensitive emulsion.
A photographic negative of the desired image is placed in contact with the emulsion and the
plate is exposed to ultraviolet light. After development, the emulsion shows a reverse of the
negative image, which is thus a duplicate of the original (positive) image. The image on the
plate emulsion can also be created through direct laser imaging in a CTP (Computer-To-
Plate) device called a platesetter. The positive image is the emulsion that remains after
imaging. For many years, chemicals have been used to remove the non-image emulsion, but
now plates are available that do not require chemical processing.
Lithography press for printing maps in Munich

The plate is affixed to a cylinder on a printing press. Dampening rollers apply water, which
covers the blank portions of the plate but is repelled by the emulsion of the image area. Ink,
which is hydrophobic, is then applied by the inking rollers, which is repelled by the water
and only adheres to the emulsion of the image area--such as the type and photographs on a
newspaper page.

If this image were directly transferred to paper, it would create a mirror image and the paper
would become too wet. Instead, the plate rolls against a cylinder covered with a rubber
blanket, which squeezes away the water, picks up the ink and transfers it to the paper with
uniform pressure. The paper rolls across the blanket drum and the image is transferred to the
paper. Because the image is first transferred, or offset to the rubber drum, this reproduction
method is known as offset lithography or offset printing.

Many innovations and technical refinements have been made in printing processes and
presses over the years, including the development of presses with multiple units (each
containing one printing plate) that can print multi-color images in one pass on both sides of
the sheet, and presses that accommodate continuous rolls (webs) of paper, known as web
presses. Another innovation was the continuous dampening system first introduced by
Dahlgren instead of the old method which is still used today on older presses (conventional
dampening), which are rollers covered in molleton (cloth) which absorbs the water. This
increased control over the water flow to the plate and allowed for better ink and water
balance. Current dampening systems include a "delta effect or vario " which slows the roller
in contact with the plate, thus creating a sweeping movement over the ink image to clean
impurities known as "hickies".

The advent of desktop publishing made it possible for type and images to be manipulated
easily on personal computers for eventual printing on desktop or commercial presses. The
development of digital imagesetters enabled print shops to produce negatives for
platemaking directly from digital input, skipping the intermediate step of photographing an
actual page layout. The development of the digital platesetter in the late twentieth century
eliminated film negatives altogether by exposing printing plates directly from digital input, a
process known as computer to plate printing.

Microlithography and nanolithography

'City of Words', lithograph by Vito Acconci, 1999

Microlithography and nanolithography refer specifically to lithographic patterning methods

capable of structuring material on a fine scale. Typically features smaller than 10
micrometers are considered microlithographic, and features smaller than 100 nanometers are
considered nanolithographic. Photolithography is one of these methods, often applied to
semiconductor manufacturing of microchips. Photolithography is also commonly used in
fabricating MEMS devices. Photolithography generally uses a pre-fabricated photomask or
reticle as a master from which the final pattern is derived.

Although photolithographic technology is the most commercially advanced form of

nanolithography, other techniques are also used. Some, for example electron beam
lithography, are capable of much higher patterning resolution (sometime as small as a few
nanometers). Electron beam lithography is also commercially important, primarily for its use
in the manufacture of photomasks. Electron beam lithography as it is usually practiced is a
form of maskless lithography, in that no mask is required to generate the final pattern.
Instead, the final pattern is created directly from a digital representation on a computer, by
controlling an electron beam as it scans across a resist-coated substrate. Electron beam
lithography has the disadvantage of being much slower than photolithography.
In addition to these commercially well-established techniques, a large number of promising
microlithographic and nanolithographic technologies exist or are emerging, including
nanoimprint lithography, interference lithography, X-ray lithography, extreme ultraviolet
lithography, magnetolithography and scanning probe lithography. Some of these emerging
techniques have been used successfully in small-scale commercial and important research
applications. Surface-charge lithography, in fact PDMS can be directly patterned on polar
dielectric crystals via pyroelectric effect, Diffraction lithography

Lithography as an artistic medium

Smiling Spider by Odilon Redon

During the first years of the nineteenth century, lithography made only a limited impact on
printmaking, mainly because technical difficulties remained to be overcome. Germany was
the main centre of production during this period. Godefroy Engelmann, who moved his
press from Mulhouse to Paris in 1816, largely succeeded in resolving the technical
problems, and in the 1820s lithography was taken up by artists such as Delacroix and
Géricault. London also became a centre, and some of Géricault's prints were in fact
produced there. Goya in Bordeaux produced his last series of prints in lithography - The
Bulls of Bordeaux of 1828. By the mid-century the initial enthusiasm had somewhat died
down in both countries, although lithography continued to gain ground in commercial
applications, which included the great prints of Daumier, published in newspapers.
Rodolphe Bresdin and Jean-Francois Millet also continued to practice the medium in France,
and Adolf Menzel in Germany.
An 1836 lithograph of Mexican women making tortillas by Carl Nebel.

In 1862 the publisher Cadart tried to launch a portfolio of lithographs by various artists
which flopped, but included several superb prints by Manet. The revival began in the 1870s,
especially in France with artists such as Odilon Redon, Henri Fantin-Latour and Degas
producing much of their work in this way. The need for strictly limited editions to maintain
the price had now been realized, and the medium become more accepted.

In the 1890s colour lithography became enormously popular with French artists, Toulouse-
Lautrec most notably of all, and by 1900 the medium in both colour and monotone was an
accepted part of printmaking, although France and the US have used it more than other
countries.

Self Portrait with Skeleton Arm (Lithograph) - Edvard Munch

Grant Wood, George Bellows, Alphonse Mucha, Max Kahn, Pablo Picasso, Eleanor Coen,
Jasper Johns, David Hockney, Susan Dorothea White and Robert Rauschenberg are a few of
the artists who have produced most of their prints in the medium. M.C. Escher is
considered a master in lithography, and many of his prints were created using this process.
More than other printmaking techniques, printmakers in lithography still largely depend on
access to a good printer, and the development of the medium has been greatly influenced by
when and where these have been established.

As a special form of lithography, the Serilith process is sometimes used. Serilith are mixed
media original prints created in a process where an artist uses the lithograph and serigraph
process. The separations for both processes are hand drawn by the artist. The serilith
technique is used primarily to create fine art limited print editions.

Flexographic Printing

Applications:

Flexography is the major process used to print packaging materials. Flexography is used to
print corrugated containers, folding cartons, multiwall sacks, paper sacks, plastic bags, milk
and beverage cartons, disposable cups and containers, labels, adhesive tapes, envelopes,
newspapers, and wrappers (candy and food).
 Process Overview

• Diagram of Image Carriers Used in Printing Processes

In the typical flexo printing sequence, the substrate is fed into the press from a roll. The
image is printed as substrate is pulled through a series of stations, or print units. Each print
unit is printing a single color. As with Gravure and Lithographic printing, the various tones
and shading are achieved by overlaying the 4 basic shades of ink. These are magenta, cyan,
yellow and black. Magenta being the red tones and cyan being the blue.

The major unit operations in a flexographic printing operation are:

• Image preparation
• Platemaking
• Printing
• Finishing

Gravure Printing

Gravure printing is an expensive high quality printing process which uses copper plates.
This process is commonly used to print high quality large volume materials such as
magazines, newspaper, catalogues and more.
The best methods to ensure you get the printing results you require are to ask questions of
your printer. It is important that the printing process will deliver required results. Generally
if you have chosen a good printer your products will look great.

Applications:

Typical gravure printed products include:

 • Food packaging
• Wall paper
• Wrapping paper
• Furniture laminates
• Paneling
• Greeting cards
• Magazines

Process Overview

• Diagram of Image Carriers Used in Printing Processes

Gravure printing is characteristically used for long run, high quality printing producing a
sharp, fine image. The number of gravure printing plants in the U.S. is significantly lower
than other printing processes. This is due, in part, to the cost of presses and components.
While a lithographic press will cost in the range of $100,000 the cost of gravure press will
be in the range of $1 million. Additionally a single gravure cylinder will cost around $5000
versus around $15 for a lithographic plate. Additionally, the gravure cylinder has a long
service life and will yield a very large number of impressions without degradation.

Gravure Process Flow Diagram

Gravure printing is an example of intaglio printing. It uses a depressed or sunken surface for
the image. The image areas consist of honey comb shaped cells or wells that are etched or
engraved into a copper cylinder. The unetched areas of the cylinder represent the non-image
or unprinted areas. The cylinder rotates in a bath of ink called the ink pan.

As the cylinder turns, the excess ink is wiped off the cylinder by a flexible steel doctor
blade. The ink remaining in the recessed cells forms the image by direct transfer to the
substrate (paper or other material) as it passes between the plate cylinder and the impression
cylinder.

The major unit operations in a gravure printing operation are:

• Image preparation
• Cylinder preparation
• Printing
• Finishing

Gravure Inks - Solvent Based, Water Based

Gravure inks are fluid inks with a very low viscosity that allows them to be drawn into the
engraved cells in the cylinder then transferred onto the substrate. In order to dry the ink and
drive off the solvents or water, which essentially replaces most of the solvent, the paper is
run through Gas fired or electric fired driers. The ink will dry before the paper reaches the
next printing station on the press. This is necessary because wet inks cannot be overprinted
without smearing and smudging. Therefore, high volume air dryers are placed after each
printing station.

The solvent-laden air from the dryers is passed through either a solvent recovery system or
solvent vapor incinerator. A typical recovery system uses beds of activated carbon to absorb
the solvent. Saturated beds are regenerated by steam. The solvent laden steam is then
condensed and the water and solvent separate by gravity. Greater than 95 percent of the ink
solvents can be recovered using this process (Buonicore). The solvents can either be reused
or destroyed by incineration.

Water based inks, especially used for packaging and product gravure, require a higher
temperature and longer drier exposure time in order to drive off the water and lower vapor
pressure constituents. As mentioned subsequent sections, Flexo and Gravure inks are very
similar and the constituents are essentially the same. Again, a pollution control device may
be needed.

Gravure Press Design and Equipment

Web-fed gravure presses account for almost all publication, packaging, and product gravure
printing. These presses are generally custom manufactured machines designed for a specific
range of products. The typical press is highly automated and consists of multiple print units.
The printing mechanism in a rotogravure press consists of a gravure cylinder and a smaller,
rubber clad impression cylinder.

Other types of gravure presses in commercial use today are sheet-fed, intaglio plate, and
offset gravure. These types of presses are used primarily for special printing applications.

Screen Printing

Applications

Screen printing is arguably the most versatile of all printing processes. It can be used to print
on a wide variety of substrates, including paper, paperboard, plastics, glass, metals, fabrics,
and many other materials. including paper, plastics, glass, metals, nylon and cotton. Some
common products from the screen printing industry include posters, labels, decals, signage,
and all types of textiles and electronic circuit boards. The advantage of screenprinting over
other print processes is that the press can print on substrates of any shape, thickness and
size.

A significant characteristic of screen printing is that a greater thickness of the ink can be
applied to the substrate than is possible with other printing techniques. This allows for some
very interesting effects that are not possible using other printing methods. Because of the
simplicity of the application process, a wider range of inks and dyes are available for use in
screen printing than for use in any other printing process.

Utilization of screenprinting presses has begun to increase because production rates have
improved. This has been a result of the development of the automated and rotary
screenprinting press, improved dryers, and U.V. curable ink. The major chemicals used
include screen emulsions, inks, and solvents, surfactants, caustics and oxidizers used in
screen reclamation. The inks used vary dramatically in their formulations (GATF 1992b).

Screen Printing Process Overview

• Diagram of Image Carriers Used in Printing Processes

Screen printing consists of three elements: the screen which is the image carrier; the
squeegee; and ink. The screen printing process uses a porous mesh stretched tightly over a
frame made of wood or metal. Proper tension is essential to accurate color registration. The
mesh is made of porous fabric or stainless steel mesh. A stencil is produced on the screen
either manually or photochemically. The stencil defines the image to be printed in other
printing technologies this would be referred to as the image plate.

Screen printing ink is applied to the substrate by placing the screen over the material. Ink
with a paint-like consistency is placed onto the top of the screen. Ink is then forced through
the fine mesh openings using a squeegee that is drawn across the scree, applying pressure
thereby forcing the ink through the open areas of the screen. Ink will pass through only in
areas where no stencil is applied, thus forming an image on the printing substrate. The
diameter of the threads and the thread count of the mesh will determine how much ink is
deposited onto the substrates.

Many factors such as composition, size and form, angle, pressure, and speed of the blade
(squeegee) determine the quality of the impression made by the squeegee. At one time most
blades were made from rubber which, however, is prone to wear and edge nicks and has a
tendency to warp and distort. While blades continue to be made from rubbers such as
neoprene, most are now made from polyurethane which can produce as many as 25,000
impressions without significant degradation of the image.

If the item was printed on a manual or automatic screen press the printed product will be
placed on a conveyor belt which carries the item into the drying oven or through the UV
curing system. Rotary screen presses feed the material through the drying or curing system
automatically. Air drying of certain inks, though rare in the industry, is still sometimes
utilized.

The rate of screen printing production was once dictated by the drying rate of the screen
print inks. Do to improvements and innovations the production rate has greatly increased.
Some specific innovations which affected the production rate and has also increased screen
press popularity include:.

Development of automatic presses versus hand operated presses which have comparatively
slow production times.
Improved drying systems which significantly improves production rate.
Development and improvement of U.V. curable ink technologies
Development of the rotary screen press which allows continuous operation of the press. This
is one of the more recent technology developments.

Screen Preparation

Screen (or image transfer) preparation includes a number of steps. First the customer
provides the screen printer with objects, photographs, text, ideas, or concepts of what they
wish to have printed. The printer must then transfer a "picture" of the artwork (also called
"copy") to be printed into an "image" (a picture on film) which can then be processed and
eventually used to prepare the screen stencil.

Once the artwork is transferred to a positive image that will be chemically processed onto
the screen fabric (applying the emulsion or stencil) and eventually mounted onto a screen
frame that is then attached to the printing press and production begins.

Screen Printing Presses

There are three types of screen printing presses. The flat-bed (probably the most widely
used), cylinder, and rotary.

Until relatively recently all screen printing presses were manually operated. Now, however,
most commercial and industrial screen printing is done on single and multicolor automated
presses.

The process of reclaiming screens generates solvent waste and waste water. Solvent waste
generated from screen cleaning and waste water is generated through the process of
emulsion removal. The waste water will contain particulates comprised of ink pigment,
emulsion and emulsion remover (periodate).

Screen Printing Inks

Screen printing inks are moderately viscous inks which exhibit different properties when
compared to other printing inks such as offset, gravure and flexographic inks though they
have similar basic compositions (pigments, solvent carrier, toners, and emulsifiers). There
are five different types of screen ink to include solvent, water, and solvent plastisol, water
plastisol, and UV curable.
Image Preparation

Image preparation begins with camera-ready (mechanical) art/copy or electronically

produced art supplied by the customer. Images are captured for printing by camera, scanner
or computer. Components of the image are manually assembled and positioned in a printing
flat when a camera is used. This process is called stripping. When art/copy is scanned or
digitally captured the image is assembled by the computer with special software. A simple
proof (brown print) is prepared to check for position and accuracy. When color is involved,
a color proof is submitted to the customer for approval.

Flexographic Plate Making

Flexographic and letterpress plates are made using the same basic technologies utilizing a
relief type plate. Both technologies employ plates with raised images (relief) and only the
raised images come in contact with the substrate during printing. Flexographic plates are
made of a flexible material, such as plastic, rubber or UV sensitive polymer (photopolymer),
so that it can be attached to a roller or cylinder for ink application. There are three primary
methods of making flexographic plates; photomechanical, photochemical and laser engraved
plates.

Flexographic Printing Presses

The five types of printing presses used for flexographic printing are the stack type, central
impression cylinder (CIC), in-line, newspaper unit, and dedicated 4-, 5-, or 6-color unit
commercial publication flexographic presses. All five types employ a plate cylinder, a
metering cylinder known as the anilox roll that applies ink to the plate, and an ink pan. Some
presses use a third roller as a fountain roller and, in some cases, a doctor blade for improved
ink distribution.

Flexographic Inks

Flexographic inks are very similar to packaging gravure printing inks in that they are fast
drying and have a low viscosity. The inks are formulated to lie on the surface of
nonabsorbent substrates and solidify when solvents are removed. Solvents are removed with
heat, unless U.V. curable inks are used.

Finishing

After printing, the substrate may run through a number of operations to be "finished" and
ready for shipment to the customer. Finishing may include operations such as coating,
cutting, folding and binding.
Letterpress Printing

Applications

Typical products printed with letterpress printing processes include business cards,
letterhead, proofs, billheads, forms, posters, announcements, imprinting, embossing and hot-
leaf Stamping

Offset Letterpress Printing Process Overview

• Diagram of Image Carriers Used in Printing Processes

Letterpress is the oldest method of printing with equipment and images printed by the
"relief" type printing plates where the image or printing areas are raised above the non-
printing areas. The use of letterpresses is on the decline being replaced with faster and more
efficient printing presses such as the offset lithographic press or the flexographic press. The
amount of setup required to prepare the equipment to print a job is significant. For example,
the image must be metal cast prior to print versus offset printing plates which are
comparatively cheaper and require less time to make.
How letterpress works: Letterpress printing exerts variable amounts of pressure on the
substrate dependent on the size and image elements in the printing. The amount of pressure
per square inch or "squeeze" is greater on some highlight dots than it is on larger shadow
dots. Expensive, time consuming adjustments must be made throughout the press run to
make sure the impression pressure is just right. Major chemicals used in letterpress printing,
very similar to those used in lithography, include film developers and fixers, inks, and
blanket and roller washes (GATF 1992b).

Image Preparation of Letterpress Printing Plates

Letterpress printing uses type that is raised above (relief) the non-printing areas. In
traditional letterpress work, letters were assembled into copy, explanatory cuts were placed
nearby, line drawings were etched or engraved into plates, and all these were placed
(composed) on a flat marble stone, within a rigid frame (chase) spaced artistically with
blocks (furniture) tightened up (locked-up) with toothed angular blocks (quoins).

Letterpress Equipment Design

There are three different types of letterpress printing devices in use today: platen, flat-bed,
and rotary presses. The two most common types of letterpress presses, the unit-design
perfecting rotary press and the rotary letterpress typically used for magazine printing.

Rotary Letterpress Printing

There are two types of rotary letterpresses, sheet-fed and web-fed. Web-fed rotary presses
are the most popular type of letter press printing. Sheetfed rotary presses are also declining
in use; in fact these sheetfed rotary presses are no longer manufactured in the U.S. Like all
rotary presses, rotary letterpress requires curved image carrying plates. The most popular
types of plates used are stereotype, electrotype, and molded plastic or rubber. When printing
on coated papers, rotary presses use heat-set inks and are equipped with dryers, usually the
high-velocity hot air type.

Web-fed rotary letterpress presses are used primarily for printing newspapers. These presses
are designed to print both sides of the web simultaneously. Typically, they can print up to
four pages across the web; however, some of the new presses can print up to six pages
across a 90-inch web. Rotary letterpress is also used for long-run commercial, packaging,
book, and magazine printing.
Platen-type Letterpress Printing

A platen press is made up of two flat surfaces called the bed and the platen. The platen
provides a smooth backing for the paper or other substrate that is to be printed. The raised
plate (image to be printed) is locked onto a flat surface. The plate is inked, the substrate is
then placed on another flat surface called the bed and pressed against the inked plate
producing the impression.

The platen and bed carry both the paper and the type form. The press then opens and closes
like a clam shell. Platen printing is typically used for short runs such as invitations, name
cards, and stationary. Larger platen presses are used for die-cutting and embossing. Some
platen presses are arranged with the bed and platen in the vertical plane.

The plate is inked with an inking roller that transfers ink from an inking plate to the image
carrier. Ink is placed on the inking plate by an ink fountain roller. The platen style press has
been widely used in printing small-town newspapers since the late 1800s. The printing area
is usually limited to a maximum of 18 inches by 24 inches. These presses are also used to
print letterhead, billheads, forms, posters, announcements, and many other types of printed
products, as well as for imprinting, embossing, and hot-leaf stamping.

Flat-Bed Cylinder Letterpress Printing

Flat-bed cylinder presses use either vertical or horizontal beds. The plate is locked to a bed
which passes over an inking roller and then against the substrate. The substrate passes
around an impression cylinder on its way from the feed stack to the delivery stack. Another
way of describing this is that a single revolution of the cylinder moves over the bed while in
a vertical position so that both the bed holding the substrate and cylinder move up and down
in a reciprocating motion. Ink is supplied to the plate cylinder by an inking roller and an ink
fountain. The presses can print either one or two-color impressions. Flat-bed cylinder
presses, which operate in a manner similar to the platen press, will print stock as large as 42
inches by 56 inches.

Flat-bed cylinder presses operate very slowly, having a production rate of not more than
5,000 impressions per hour. As a result, much of the printing formerly done on this type of
press is now done using rotary letterpress or lithography. The horizontal bed press, the
slower of the two types of flat-bed cylinder press, is no longer manufactured in the United
States.

Plateless Processes
Applications

The various plateless printing processes are quite different from the five major conventional
printing processes described above. Unlike traditional processes, the new processes do not
use printing plates or any other type of physical image carrier. Instead, they rely on
sophisticated computer software and hardware to control the printing elements. Currently,
however, the plateless processes are restricted largely to in-plant and quick printing
applications.

Printing Type Process Overview

In terms of chemical use, the plateless processes have a number of advantages over
traditional printing processes. Typically, make-ready preparations are done electronically so
the various chemicals associated with prepress operations are largely avoided. Plateless
processes do not require solvent washes and with a few exceptions (e.g., ink jet printers) dry
(solventless) inks are used. Though the chemicals used in plateless processes depends on the
particular process involved, important chemicals include Freon 11, inks, and hydrocarbon
based solvents (GATF 1992b).

Equipment

A number of commercial plateless printing technologies exist including: electronic printing,

ink jet printing, magnetography, ion deposition printing, direct charge deposition printing,
and the Mead Cycolor Photocapsule process.
 Minor printing process
Process of printing in order to produce limited number of printed materials using small tools
and equipments.

Blueprinting

A blueprinting mixture is very easy to set up, and we have found that many plain papers will
successfully take up this mixture. Objects put onto the dried blueprinting paper will block
sunlight from getting to the chemicals - these bits stay unchanged. Where the sunlight can
get to the paper, an intense blue colour develops. The blue colour will not wash out of the
paper, but the greenish colour left under the object will. This leaves a white image of the
object on a blue background.
Lots of things can be blueprinted, such as pens, rulers and protractors, with great results. Our
students have also experimented with cut-out messages and pictures, and some have tried to
get different shades using masks and different exposure times. It works even on an overcast
day in Harrogate!

Block printing

is a technique for printing text, images or patterns used widely throughout East Asia and
originating in China in antiquity as a method of printing on textiles and later paper. As a
method of printing on cloth, the earliest surviving examples from China date to before 220,
and from Egypt to the 4th century.[1] Ukiyo-e is the best known type of Japanese woodblock
art print. Most European uses of the technique on paper are covered by the art term woodcut,
except for the block-books produced mainly in the fifteenth century.