Know the History of Printing   by Jyotsna Ramani

Printing, which is being extensively used now-a-days has a very long history. Now a days, printing is not restricted to printing on paper it is even being done on fabrics. The history of printing has undergone drastic changes to give the current high quality methods of printing such as Digital Printing and 3D printing. This article gives information about the history of printing i.e. how it all began and its development to the current status.
The Chinese were the first to use printing. It was done during the reign of Tang Dynasty (618-906). Ink was applied to carved wooden blocks and then the patterns were imprinted on the paper multiple times. Next, it was in 1241 the Koreans printed books with a movable type of press. Later in 1423, the Europeans used block printing to Print books.
In the history of printing, the 15th century is marked with the dawn of modern printing with Gutenberg creation of moveable type press. As mentioned, the Chinese and Koreans did use this movable type of press. Then, what makes Gutenberg’s type so unique? Durability was the unique feature of Gutenberg type compared to those used by Chinese and Koreans. The type of Gutenberg are made from an alloy which is a combination of lead, tin and antimony rather than wood or porcelain which were used by Chinese and Koreans. The letters were also clear, precise and easy to read. With the advent of Gutenberg’s press information exchange happened at a faster rate across Europe.
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These manual and laborious methods of printing continued for about 300 years. It was in 1811, the history of printing experienced an explosion with the invention of presses powered by steam and the credit goes to Friedrich Koenig a German Printer. Since then newspapers become less expensive. However, the printing process continued to be slow until the invention of rotary press by an American. This rotary press enables the use of large rolls of paper for continuous and constant feed.
However, the methods of printing were very expensive and only the rich could afford. Even so the printing was not very attractive as it was restricted to the use of black ink only. All of it changed in the 20th century with the invention of electrophotography by Chester Carlson in 1938. Since then the quality of the printing increased greatly and the improved machines could use colors other than black.
The 20th century marked with the advent of PC further improved printing. It was made so simple that anyone is now able to print their documents. This has not only improved the quality of printing but has also reduced the cost of printing greatly and made printing in the reach of the ordinary man.
Many people now are able to print their own documents but most businesses still rely on commercial Printing Services to create bulk sets of printed literature or advertising.

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