When we developed written language, we significantly increased our functional memory and our ability to share insights and knowledge across time and space. The same thing happened with the invention of the printing press, the telegraph, and the radio. ~ Jamais Cascio
One day, I’ll research the claim about functional memory, but not today. For now, I’m concentrating on the evolution of printing from a time of completing one document at a time to modern-day mass production. I considered this subject before, and when I learned that a new friend had hands-on experience, I decided it was time to tackle the topic.
Of course, we think of Gutenberg when printing presses are mentioned, and we’ll get to him. He played a pivotal role in the industry, but he didn’t invent print. He wasn’t the first to mass-produce printed material, and he wasn’t even in the same millennium or on the same continent as the Chinese who got that party started.
This post will be longer than usual; such is the nature of inventions’ histories. And yet, the length may exceed the limited attention span of my fellow humans. Pause or depart as necessary.
First, we back up about 2,000 years
The Han Dynasty gave us the earliest print job, perhaps dating back to 206 BC, according to Tribeca Printworks. That site gives the example of a wood carving where artisans inked the raised area, then pressed it onto silk. Obviously, that’s an oversimplification, but that’s all I’ve got. Hundreds of years later, the Chinese adapted that process for mass production. Please note, however, that the continuation of production only worked for as long as the carved object could sustain use. Once it wore out, the carvers had to hit the carving board again, as it were. Gutenberg resolved this issue. Read on.
In the 15th century, the intaglio process was developed, whereby the sunken portions of a mold held the ink, rather than the raised portions. It was in this era that Gutenberg began to make history. He invented movable type and a companion printing press in Europe. That was a critical innovation, as Gutenberg’s system enabled casting of individual letters and characters. Compositors arranged the movable type to create content, then rearranged and reused it for different texts. That system facilitated faster composition and correction of text, and revolutionized typesetting and printing. Additionally, it positively impacted affordability and the spread of timely information.
Moving on up to printing in the 18th century
Note in the list below (next section) that Nicholson invented a cylindrical press in 1790. That had to be a powerful improvement, as consistent pressure was key to transferring impressions on any medium. The following century brought energy (steam) to replace muscle and it brought the linotype machine to streamline typesetting.
By the mid-twentieth century, Carlson invented photocopying (who knew it was that old?) and it was a hop, skip, and a jump to the laser printer. Just. Like. That.
A relatively brief printing press development timeline
The American Printing Association provides us with a detailed timeline of the printing press’s evolution. Feel free to check out the whole list. I cherry-picked, and the list is still long.
- 932 The Chinese adapted wood-block (woodcut) to mass-produce print jobs
- 1041 Chinese invented movable type.
- 1438-1444 Gutenberg invented the adjustable type mold.
- 1476 Printers used the Intaglio method for a book illustration. This is the opposite of relief printing.
- 1790 William Nicholson invented the cylindrical printing press.
- 1814 Frederick Koenig built steam-powered cylinder printing press.
- 1837 multi-color printing developed.
- 1875 Thomas Edison invented the mimeograph machine.
- 1886 the first successful automatic typesetting machine, AKA linotype, was developed.
- 1938 Chester S. Carlson developed photocopying.
- 1968 Dot matrix printing introduced.
- 1969 Xerox developed the laser printer.
- 1983 deskstop publishing introduced.
- 1993 Introduced Indigo digital color printer.
- 2003 Hewlett-Packard introduced wi-fi laser printer.
A little about Gutenberg, the man
For all his notoriety, little is known about Johannes Gutenberg, but here’s a smidgen offered by Britannica. He was born in Mainz, German (SW of Frankfurt) into a nobleman’s family. At some point, Gutenberg acquired metal-working skills that enabled his development of printing press components, but we don’t have details on that. So, everyone loved him, yes? No.
Gutenberg left the country sometime in the late 1420s due to power struggles and resource control issues between the patricians and the guild members. No, human nature hasn’t changed much. In his new city, Strasbourg, he engaged in gem-cutting and provided instruction to a number of students. He certainly had versatile skills
A brief tutorial about types of presses and setting type
Before we all had printing at our fingertips, how did people learn the trade? Centuries ago, the craft was likely passed along through apprenticeships, but there were other options by the 20th century. Some high schools offered training in typesetting as far back as the 1900s, and courses were offered in “cold” typesetting (no metal/lead) as recently as the 1970s. Who knew? My previously mentioned friend, Elaine, opted to try the print shop class in high school and loved it. In our conversation about her career, we covered a lot of ground. Sadly, neither my memory nor the allotted space will do it justice. But here’s a little about the process:
- Composing sticks (featured in the video below) were used to hold the separate letters tightly together in words/sentences and placed into the press. Yes, letters were added one at a time.
- A linotype machine was part of a hot metal process, whereby a line of type was cast into a single slug.
- A subsequent iteration, linofilm, set type photographically and facilitated corrections.
- The cold composition process required an input/keyboard device that generated a coded paper tape that was then run on an output device. It produced film, initially in galley form (the file was cut up or “stripped” to create a page layout), and later, as the technology evolved, into a full page layout – WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get). The film output was used to create press plates for printing.
Terms common to the trade
As with other terms from any industry or topic, the vernacular changes over time. Here are a few that may or may not be currently in use.
- Cold Typesetting: Paper tape – language of the characters, 6-level punched tape that included code and text for the output processor to read to produce film; predecessor to digital.
- Cold Typesetting: Stripping – cutting and pasting film strips into page layout, arranging the page.
- Hot typesetting: Compositors – people who arranged type, requiring memorization of the location of each letter in the California Job Case – similar to touch typing.
- Hot typesetting: Sort – each letter is a sort. If you’re out of a letter you need, you’re out of sorts.
- Kerning – fixing the space between letters for visual space consistency, also called color spacing.
- Leading (pronounced with a short e) – a spacer to separate lines
- Sort – each letter is a sort. If you’re out of a letter you need, you’re out of sorts.
Photo credit (B&W): "Gutenberg-Museum of the City of Mainz." The press is a Columbia, invented by Clymer in 1818. The print shop is a depiction of an early 17th-century work area. Color photos: Elaine Jungk: printed circuit board and California Job Case.
If you're still with me, here's what I get out of all of that
My primary takeaway is that printing is way more complicated than I thought. The post sections that precede this one contain but a whisper of the information available, and not half of what Elaine shared with me. In fairness, I wasn’t able to take it all in. As an example, here’s an outtake:
[The] hot typesetting … only relates to lead or hot typesetting. Typography relates to the art and process of typesetting … for both hot and cold typesetting. Compositor was only used for hot. Typographer was used for both, but only used once we started to get too cold.
Follow? It’s okay. Back to something I can speak of without prompts.
Every single day, I use my laptop for emails, research, creating blog post content, or social media. If I need to print a document, I select Ctrl P, and immediately the printer hums with the received order (and a reminder that the printer is low on ink). Nothing and no one requires me to pull the letters out of a box, then arrange them backwards and upside down just to see my efforts in print. If I had to work that hard for it, would my blog posts stop at a few sentences? Or would I–and others–give up before we started?
If you seek a reason to be grateful, just select a topic and dive in. You might be as amazed as I am to learn how comparatively easy daily tasks are relative to years gone by. That, and as you ask questions of your friends and acquaintances, you’ll see the breadth of knowledge they have on subjects you know nothing about. It’s humbling, but I am not deterred.
I’m thinking the origin of paper is a logical segue to the printing press. And I’m wondering how many of my friends are changing their phones to permanent silent mode in anticipation of the questions that will surely follow. Contemporary daily tasks require significantly less effort than their historical counterparts, a development that may prove as surprising to you as it was to me.
Interesting piece. More steps to getting there and more years than I would have thought. I suppose most innovation is simply improvement on someone else’s innovation. It is a long way from the invention of the wheel to my fuel injected SSRS Camaro convertible. “Man is the only animal who can stand on the shoulders of the dead and peer into the future.” (Friedrich Nietzsche)
Yep. Always building on current technology. It’s hard to imagine anyone would have enough intelligence to create high level tools all in one swipe, but the wheel was a darned good start. 😉
I love the quote, by the way.
What a tedious process!
The video was entertaining and made me happy to own my HP printer.
I would like to have an apron like the type setters wear.
Right? I would have stuck with drawing pictures in the dirt. Can’t imagine trying to line up ~1000 words every week. Nope.
I find myself thinking we might be happier today if the printing (and communicating) process still required skill.
I certainly think everything would be much improved if we all (myself included) were forced to slow down before our thoughts were “out there” for the world to see. Even hundreds of years ago, though, the person who created the content was probably not the person who did the print job. Oh, well.