The History of Printing

If you have ever seen a typewriter in action, you have seen the evolution of movable type in action. In the 15th century, the printing press was a machine invented to imitate the slow process of writing by hand. The type was smeared with ink, and pressed to paper and left to dry.

Most printing was on something called writing paper, which was paper that had been coated so that it was no longer as stiff as paper normally was. This was necessary so that the paper could absorb the ink. Paper was usually parchment, which was made out of animal skin, and ink was made from paints, as it had been for years for handwriting by scribes.

In order to coat the type with ink, printers needed something called an ink ball, which was a tool the shape of a mushroom that held the ink to be spread. The press itself was a large table with a horizontal plate that could be lowered onto the papers.

Not only were printers much larger and messier, as we would expect, Gutenberg could print at first only with both black and red ink. Early books made with this technology were of course rare, and usually sold at trade fairs or by travelling salesmen.