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Movable type (US English; moveable type in British English) is the system and
technology Technology is the application of knowledge to reach practical goals in a specifiable and Reproducibility, reproducible way. The word ''technology'' may also mean the product of such an endeavor. The use of technology is widely prevalent in me ...
of
printing Printing is a process for mass reproducing text and images using a master form or template. The earliest non-paper products involving printing include cylinder seals and objects such as the Cyrus Cylinder and the Cylinders of Nabonidus. The ...
and
typography Typography is the art and technique of arranging type to make written language legible, readable and appealing when displayed. The arrangement of type involves selecting typefaces, point sizes, line lengths, line-spacing ( leading), ...
that uses movable components to reproduce the elements of a document (usually individual alphanumeric characters or punctuation marks) usually on the medium of
paper Paper is a thin sheet material produced by mechanically or chemically processing cellulose fibres derived from wood, rags, grasses or other vegetable sources in water, draining the water through fine mesh leaving the fibre evenly distrib ...
. The world's first movable type printing technology for paper books was made of
porcelain Porcelain () is a ceramic material made by heating substances, generally including materials such as kaolinite, in a kiln to temperatures between . The strength and translucence of porcelain, relative to other types of pottery, arises main ...
materials and was invented around AD 1040 in China during the
Northern Song dynasty Northern may refer to the following: Geography * North, a point in direction * Northern Europe, the northern part or region of Europe * Northern Highland, a region of Wisconsin, United States * Northern Province, Sri Lanka * Northern Range, a ...
by the inventor Bi Sheng (990–1051). The earliest printed
paper money A banknote—also called a bill (North American English), paper money, or simply a note—is a type of negotiable promissory note, made by a bank or other licensed authority, payable to the bearer on demand. Banknotes were originally issued ...
with movable metal type to print the identifying code of the money was made in 1161 during the Song dynasty. In 1193, a book in the Song dynasty documented how to use the copper movable type. The oldest extant book printed with movable
metal type In typesetting, a sort or type is a block with a typographic character etched on it, which is lined up with others to print text. In movable-type printing, the sort or type is cast from a matrix mold and assembled by hand with other sorts be ...
, Jikji, was printed in
Korea Korea ( ko, 한국, or , ) is a peninsular region in East Asia. Since 1945, it has been divided at or near the 38th parallel, with North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) comprising its northern half and South Korea (Republic o ...
in 1377 during the
Goryeo Goryeo (; ) was a Korean kingdom founded in 918, during a time of national division called the Later Three Kingdoms period, that unified and ruled the Korean Peninsula until 1392. Goryeo achieved what has been called a "true national unificat ...
dynasty. The spread of both movable-type systems was, to some degree, limited to primarily East Asia. The development of the
printing press A printing press is a mechanical device for applying pressure to an inked surface resting upon a print medium (such as paper or cloth), thereby transferring the ink. It marked a dramatic improvement on earlier printing methods in which the ...
in Europe may have been influenced by various sporadic reports of movable type technology brought back to Europe by returning business people and missionaries to China. Some of these
medieval European In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire an ...
accounts are still preserved in the library archives of the
Vatican Vatican may refer to: Vatican City, the city-state ruled by the pope in Rome, including St. Peter's Basilica, Sistine Chapel, Vatican Museum The Holy See * The Holy See, the governing body of the Catholic Church and sovereign entity recognized ...
and
Oxford University Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to th ...
among many others. Around 1450, German goldsmith Johannes Gutenberg introduced the metal movable-type printing press in Europe, along with innovations in casting the type based on a matrix and
hand mould A hand mold is a simple mold used for low quantity work. It is used in the injection molding and the printing industry. It is made by a hand injection molding machine. It is a simple machine which contains a barrel, handle, nozzle, mold and heater ...
. The small number of
alphabet An alphabet is a standardized set of basic written graphemes (called letters) that represent the phonemes of certain spoken languages. Not all writing systems represent language in this way; in a syllabary, each character represents a syllab ...
ic characters needed for European languages was an important factor. Gutenberg was the first to create his type pieces from an alloy of
lead Lead is a chemical element with the symbol Pb (from the Latin ) and atomic number 82. It is a heavy metal that is denser than most common materials. Lead is soft and malleable, and also has a relatively low melting point. When freshly cu ...
,
tin Tin is a chemical element with the symbol Sn (from la, stannum) and atomic number 50. Tin is a silvery-coloured metal. Tin is soft enough to be cut with little force and a bar of tin can be bent by hand with little effort. When bent, t ...
, and
antimony Antimony is a chemical element with the symbol Sb (from la, stibium) and atomic number 51. A lustrous gray metalloid, it is found in nature mainly as the sulfide mineral stibnite (Sb2S3). Antimony compounds have been known since ancient t ...
—and these materials remained standard for 550 years. For alphabetic scripts, movable-type
page setting In graphic design, page layout is the arrangement of visual elements on a page. It generally involves organizational principles of composition to achieve specific communication objectives. The high-level page layout involves deciding on the ov ...
was quicker than
woodblock printing Woodblock printing or 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 textile printing, printing on textiles and later paper. Each page o ...
. 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 The Gutenberg Bible (also known as the 42-line Bible, the Mazarin Bible or the B42) was the earliest major book printed using mass-produced movable metal type in Europe. It marked the start of the " Gutenberg Revolution" and the age of printed ...
(1455) established the superiority of movable type in Europe and the use of
printing presses A printing press is a mechanical device for applying pressure to an inked surface resting upon a print medium (such as paper or cloth), thereby transferring the ink. It marked a dramatic improvement on earlier printing methods in which the ...
spread rapidly. The printing press may be regarded as one of the key factors fostering the
Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history The history of Europe is traditionally divided into four time periods: prehistoric Europe (prior to about 800 BC), classical antiquity (800 BC to AD ...
and, due to its effectiveness, its use spread around the globe. The 19th-century invention of hot metal typesetting and its successors caused movable type to decline in the 20th century.


Precursors to movable type


Letter punch and coins

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. These metal punch types can be seen as precursors of the letter punches adapted in later millennia to printing with movable metal type.
Cylinder seal A cylinder seal is a small round cylinder, typically about one inch (2 to 3 cm) in length, engraved with written characters or figurative scenes or both, used in ancient times to roll an impression onto a two-dimensional surface, generally ...
s were used in
Mesopotamia Mesopotamia ''Mesopotamíā''; ar, بِلَاد ٱلرَّافِدَيْن or ; syc, ܐܪܡ ܢܗܪ̈ܝܢ, or , ) is a historical region of Western Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the ...
to create an impression on a surface by rolling the seal on wet clay.


Seals and stamps

Seals and stamps may have been precursors to movable type. The uneven spacing of the impressions on brick stamps found in the
Mesopotamia Mesopotamia ''Mesopotamíā''; ar, بِلَاد ٱلرَّافِدَيْن or ; syc, ܐܪܡ ܢܗܪ̈ܝܢ, or , ) is a historical region of Western Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the ...
n cities of
Uruk Uruk, also known as Warka or Warkah, was an ancient city of Sumer (and later of Babylonia) situated east of the present bed of the Euphrates River on the dried-up ancient channel of the Euphrates east of modern Samawah, Al-Muthannā, Iraq.Harm ...
and
Larsa Larsa ( Sumerian logogram: UD.UNUGKI, read ''Larsamki''), also referred to as Larancha/Laranchon (Gk. Λαραγχων) by Berossos and connected with the biblical Ellasar, was an important city-state of ancient Sumer, the center of the cult ...
, dating from the
2nd millennium BC The 2nd millennium BC spanned the years 2000 BC to 1001 BC. In the Ancient Near East, it marks the transition from the Middle to the Late Bronze Age. The Ancient Near Eastern cultures are well within the historical era: The first half of the mil ...
, has been conjectured by some archaeologists as evidence that the stamps were made using movable type. The enigmatic
Minoan The Minoan civilization was a Bronze Age Aegean civilization on the island of Crete and other Aegean Islands, whose earliest beginnings were from 3500BC, with the complex urban civilization beginning around 2000BC, and then declining from 1450B ...
Phaistos Disc of c. 1800–1600 BC has been considered by one scholar as an early example of a body of text being reproduced with reusable characters: it may have been produced by pressing pre-formed hieroglyphic "seals" into the soft clay. A few authors even view the disc as technically meeting all definitional criteria to represent an early incidence of movable-type printing.Herbert E. Brekle, "Das typographische Prinzip", ''Gutenberg-Jahrbuch'', Vol. 72 (1997), pp. 58–63 (60f.)


Woodblock printing

Following the invention of
paper Paper is a thin sheet material produced by mechanically or chemically processing cellulose fibres derived from wood, rags, grasses or other vegetable sources in water, draining the water through fine mesh leaving the fibre evenly distrib ...
during the Chinese
Han dynasty The Han dynasty (, ; ) was an imperial dynasty of China (202 BC – 9 AD, 25–220 AD), established by Liu Bang (Emperor Gao) and ruled by the House of Liu. The dynasty was preceded by the short-lived Qin dynasty (221–207 BC) and a warr ...
, writing materials became more portable and economical than the bones, shells, bamboo slips, metal or stone tablets, silk, etc. previously used. Yet copying books by hand was still labour-consuming. Not until the Xiping Era (172–178 AD), towards the end of the Eastern Han dynasty, did sealing print and
monotype Monotyping is a type of printmaking made by drawing or painting on a smooth, non-absorbent surface. The surface, or matrix, was historically a copper etching plate, but in contemporary work it can vary from zinc or glass to acrylic glass. The ...
appear. It was soon used for printing designs on fabrics, and later for printing texts.
Woodblock printing Woodblock printing or 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 textile printing, printing on textiles and later paper. Each page o ...
, invented by about the 8th century during the
Tang dynasty The Tang dynasty (, ; zh, t= ), or Tang Empire, was an imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 618 to 907 AD, with an interregnum between 690 and 705. It was preceded by the Sui dynasty and followed by the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdom ...
, worked as follows. First, the neat hand-copied script was stuck on a relatively thick and smooth board, with the front of the paper, which was so thin that it was nearly transparent, sticking to the board, and characters showing in reverse, but distinctly, so that every stroke could be easily recognized. Then carvers cut away the parts of the board that were not part of the character, so that the characters were cut in relief, completely differently from those cut intaglio. When printing, the bulging characters would have some ink spread on them and be covered by paper. With workers' hands moving on the back of paper gently, characters would be printed on the paper. By the
Song dynasty The Song dynasty (; ; 960–1279) was an imperial dynasty of China that began in 960 and lasted until 1279. The dynasty was founded by Emperor Taizu of Song following his usurpation of the throne of the Later Zhou. The Song conquered the rest ...
, woodblock printing came to its heyday. Although woodblock printing played an influential role in spreading culture, there were some significant drawbacks. Firstly, carving the printing plate required considerable time, labour and materials; secondly, it was not convenient to store these plates; and finally, it was difficult to correct mistakes.


History


Ceramic movable type

Bi Sheng () (990–1051) developed the first known movable-type system for printing in China around 1040 AD during the
Northern Song Northern may refer to the following: Geography * North, a point in direction * Northern Europe, the northern part or region of Europe * Northern Highland, a region of Wisconsin, United States * Northern Province, Sri Lanka * Northern Range, a r ...
dynasty, using ceramic materials. A detailed examination of Gutenberg's life and invention, interwoven with the underlying social and religious upheaval of
Medieval Europe In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire a ...
on the eve of the Renaissance.
As described by the Chinese scholar Shen Kuo (沈括) (1031–1095): In 1193, Zhou Bida, an officer of the 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'' ().Xu Yinong, ''Moveable Type Books'' (徐憶農《活字本》) The ceramic movable type was also mentioned by Kublai Khan's counsellor Yao Shu, who convinced his pupil
Yang Gu Yang may refer to: * Yang, in yin and yang, one half of the two symbolic polarities in Chinese philosophy * Korean yang, former unit of currency of Korea from 1892 to 1902 * YANG, a data modeling language for the NETCONF network configuration p ...
to print language primers using this method. The claim that Bi Sheng's clay types were "fragile" and "not practical for large-scale printing" and "short lived" was refuted by later experiments. Bao Shicheng (1775–1885) wrote that baked clay moveable type was "as hard and tough as horn"; experiments show that clay type, after being baked in an oven, becomes hard and difficult to break, such that it remains intact after being dropped from a height of two metres onto a marble floor. The length of clay movable types in China was 1 to 2 centimetres, not 2mm, thus hard as horn. But similar to metal type, ceramic type did not hold the water-based Chinese calligraphic ink well, and had an added disadvantage of uneven matching of the type which could sometimes result from the uneven changes in size of the type during the baking process. There has been an ongoing debate regarding the success of ceramic printing technology as there have been no printed materials found with ceramic movable types. However, it is historically recorded to have been used as late as 1844 in China from the Song dynasty through the Qing dynasty.Pan Jixing, A history of movable metal type printing technique in China 2001 Movable type was invented during the
Northern Song dynasty Northern may refer to the following: Geography * North, a point in direction * Northern Europe, the northern part or region of Europe * Northern Highland, a region of Wisconsin, United States * Northern Province, Sri Lanka * Northern Range, a ...
around the year 1041 by the commoner Bi Sheng. Bi Sheng's movable type was fired in
porcelain Porcelain () is a ceramic material made by heating substances, generally including materials such as kaolinite, in a kiln to temperatures between . The strength and translucence of porcelain, relative to other types of pottery, arises main ...
. After his death, the ceramic movable-type passed onto his descendants. The next mention of movable type occurred in 1193 when a Southern Song chief counsellor, Zhou Bida (周必大), attributed the movable-type method of printing to Shen Kuo. However Shen Kuo did not invent the movable type but credited it to Bi Sheng in his '' Dream Pool Essays''.


Wooden movable type

Bi Sheng (990–1051) of the
Song dynasty The Song dynasty (; ; 960–1279) was an imperial dynasty of China that began in 960 and lasted until 1279. The dynasty was founded by Emperor Taizu of Song following his usurpation of the throne of the Later Zhou. The Song conquered the rest ...
also pioneered the use of wooden movable type around 1040 AD, as described by the Chinese scholar Shen Kuo (1031–1095). However, this technology was abandoned in favour of clay movable types due to the presence of wood grains and the unevenness of the wooden type after being soaked in ink. In 1298, Wang Zhen (), a
Yuan dynasty The Yuan dynasty (), officially the Great Yuan (; xng, , , literally "Great Yuan State"), was a Mongol-led imperial dynasty of China and a successor state to the Mongol Empire after its division. It was established by Kublai, the fift ...
governmental official of Jingde County,
Anhui Province Anhui , (; formerly romanized as Anhwei) is a landlocked province of the People's Republic of China, part of the East China region. Its provincial capital and largest city is Hefei. The province is located across the basins of the Yangtze River ...
, 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'' (), a book of more than 60,000
Chinese characters Chinese characters () are logograms developed for the writing of Chinese. In addition, they have been adapted to write other East Asian languages, and remain a key component of the Japanese writing system where they are known as ''kanji ...
. 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 down the character faces, 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. This new method overcame many of the shortcomings of woodblock printing. Rather than manually carving an individual block to print a single page, movable type printing allowed for the quick assembly of a page of text. Furthermore, these new, more compact type fonts could be reused and stored. Wang Zhen used two rotating circular tables as trays for laying out his type. The first table was separated into 24 trays in which each movable type was categorized based on a number corresponding with a rhyming pattern. The second table contained miscellaneous characters. 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. In 1322, a Fenghua county officer Ma Chengde () in Zhejiang, made 100,000 wooden movable types and printed the 43-volume ''Daxue Yanyi'' (). Wooden movable types were used continually in China. Even as late as 1733, a 2300-volume ''Wuying Palace Collected Gems Edition'' () was printed with 253,500 wooden movable types on order of the Qianlong Emperor, and completed in one year. A number of books printed in
Tangut script The Tangut script ( Tangut: ; ) was a logographic writing system, used for writing the extinct Tangut language of the Western Xia dynasty. According to the latest count, 5863 Tangut characters are known, excluding variants. The Tangut characte ...
during the
Western Xia The Western Xia or the Xi Xia (), officially the Great Xia (), also known as the Tangut Empire, and known as ''Mi-nyak''Stein (1972), pp. 70–71. to the Tanguts and Tibetans, was a Tangut-led Buddhist imperial dynasty of China tha ...
(1038–1227) period are known, of which the '' Auspicious Tantra of All-Reaching Union'', which was discovered in the ruins of Baisigou Square Pagoda in 1991 is believed to have been printed sometime during the reign of Emperor Renzong of Western Xia (1139–1193). It is considered by many Chinese experts to be the earliest extant example of a book printed using wooden movable type.


Metal movable type


China

At least 13 material finds in China indicate the invention of bronze movable type printing in China no later than the 12th century, with the country producing large-scale bronze-plate-printed paper money and formal official documents issued by the Jin (1115–1234) and
Southern Song The Song dynasty (; ; 960–1279) was an imperial dynasty of China that began in 960 and lasted until 1279. The dynasty was founded by Emperor Taizu of Song following his usurpation of the throne of the Later Zhou. The Song conquered the rest ...
(1127–1279) dynasties with embedded bronze metal types for anti-counterfeit markers. Such paper-money printing might date back to the 11th-century ''jiaozi'' of
Northern Song Northern may refer to the following: Geography * North, a point in direction * Northern Europe, the northern part or region of Europe * Northern Highland, a region of Wisconsin, United States * Northern Province, Sri Lanka * Northern Range, a r ...
(960–1127). The typical example of this kind of bronze movable type embedded copper-block printing is a printed "check" of the Jin dynasty with two square holes for embedding two bronze movable-type characters, each selected from 1,000 different characters, such that each printed paper note has a different combination of markers. A copper-block printed note dated between 1215 and 1216 in the collection of
Luo Zhenyu Luo Zhenyu or Lo Chen-yü (August 8, 1866 – May 14, 1940), courtesy name Shuyun (叔蘊), was a Chinese classical scholar, philologist, epigrapher, antiquarian and Qing loyalist. Biography A native of Huai'an, Luo began to publish works ...
's ''Pictorial Paper Money of the Four Dynasties'', 1914, shows two special characters – one called ''Ziliao'', the other called ''Zihao'' – for the purpose of preventing counterfeiting; over the ''Ziliao'' there is a small character (輶) printed with movable copper type, while over the ''Zihao'' there is an empty square hole – apparently the associated copper metal type was lost. Another sample of
Song dynasty The Song dynasty (; ; 960–1279) was an imperial dynasty of China that began in 960 and lasted until 1279. The dynasty was founded by Emperor Taizu of Song following his usurpation of the throne of the Later Zhou. The Song conquered the rest ...
money of the same period in the collection of the Shanghai Museum has two empty square holes above ''Ziliao'' as well as ''Zihou'', due to the loss of the two copper movable types. Song dynasty bronze block embedded with bronze metal movable type printed paper money was issued on a large scale and remained in circulation for a long time. The 1298 book ''Zao Huozi Yinshufa'' () by the
Yuan dynasty The Yuan dynasty (), officially the Great Yuan (; xng, , , literally "Great Yuan State"), was a Mongol-led imperial dynasty of China and a successor state to the Mongol Empire after its division. It was established by Kublai, the fift ...
(1271–1368) official Wang Zhen mentions
tin Tin is a chemical element with the symbol Sn (from la, stannum) and atomic number 50. Tin is a silvery-coloured metal. Tin is soft enough to be cut with little force and a bar of tin can be bent by hand with little effort. When bent, t ...
movable type, used probably since the
Southern Song The Song dynasty (; ; 960–1279) was an imperial dynasty of China that began in 960 and lasted until 1279. The dynasty was founded by Emperor Taizu of Song following his usurpation of the throne of the Later Zhou. The Song conquered the rest ...
dynasty (1127–1279), but this was largely experimental. It was unsatisfactory due to its incompatibility with the inking process. But by the late 15th century these concerns were resolved and bronze type was widely used in Chinese printing. During the Mongol Empire (1206–1405), printing using movable type spread from China to Central Asia. The
Uyghurs The Uyghurs; ; ; ; zh, s=, t=, p=Wéiwú'ěr, IPA: ( ), alternatively spelled Uighurs, Uygurs or Uigurs, are a Turkic ethnic group originating from and culturally affiliated with the general region of Central and East Asia. The Uyghur ...
of Central Asia used movable type, their script type adopted from the Mongol language, some with Chinese words printed between the pages – strong evidence that the books were printed in China.''Chinese Paper and Printing, A Cultural History'', by Tsien, Tsuen-Hsuin During the
Ming dynasty The Ming dynasty (), officially the Great Ming, was an imperial dynasty of China, ruling from 1368 to 1644 following the collapse of the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty. The Ming dynasty was the last orthodox dynasty of China ruled by the Han peo ...
(1368–1644),
Hua Sui Hua Sui (; 1439–1513 AD) was a Chinese scholar, engineer, inventor, and printer of Wuxi, Jiangsu province during the Ming dynasty (1368–1644 AD). He belonged to the wealthy Hua family that was renowned throughout the region. Hua Sui is best ...
in 1490 used bronze type in printing books. In 1574 the massive 1000-volume encyclopedia '' Imperial Readings of the Taiping Era'' () was printed with bronze movable type. In 1725 the
Qing dynasty The Qing dynasty ( ), officially the Great Qing,, was a Manchu-led imperial dynasty of China and the last orthodox dynasty in Chinese history. It emerged from the Later Jin dynasty founded by the Jianzhou Jurchens, a Tungusic-spea ...
government made 250,000 bronze movable-type characters and printed 64 sets of the encyclopedic ''
Gujin Tushu Jicheng The ''Gujin Tushu Jicheng'' (), also known as the ''Imperial Encyclopaedia'', is a vast encyclopedic work written in China during the reigns of the Qing dynasty emperors Kangxi and Yongzheng. It was begun in 1700 and completed in 1725. The wor ...
'' (, ''Complete Collection of Illustrations and Writings from the Earliest to Current Times''). Each set consisted of 5,040 volumes, making a total of 322,560 volumes printed using movable type.


Korea

In 1234 the first books known to have been printed in metallic type set were published in Goryeo dynasty
Korea Korea ( ko, 한국, or , ) is a peninsular region in East Asia. Since 1945, it has been divided at or near the 38th parallel, with North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) comprising its northern half and South Korea (Republic o ...
. They form a set of ritual books, ''Sangjeong Gogeum Yemun'', compiled by Choe Yun-ui. While these books have not survived, the oldest book existing in the world printed in metallic movable types is '' Jikji'', printed in
Korea Korea ( ko, 한국, or , ) is a peninsular region in East Asia. Since 1945, it has been divided at or near the 38th parallel, with North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) comprising its northern half and South Korea (Republic o ...
in 1377. The Asian Reading Room of the
Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library ...
in Washington, D.C. displays examples of this metal type. Commenting on the invention of metallic types by Koreans, French scholar Henri-Jean Martin described this as " xtremely similarto Gutenberg's".Briggs, Asa and Burke, Peter (2002) ''A Social History of the Media: from Gutenberg to the Internet'', Polity, Cambridge, pp. 15–23, 61–73. However, Korean movable metal type printing differed from European printing in the materials used for the type, punch, matrix, mould and in method of making an impression. 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
Joseon dynasty Joseon (; ; Middle Korean: 됴ᇢ〯션〮 Dyǒw syéon or 됴ᇢ〯션〯 Dyǒw syěon), officially the Great Joseon (; ), was the last dynastic kingdom of Korea, lasting just over 500 years. It was founded by Yi Seong-gye in July 1392 and r ...
scholar Seong Hyeon (성현, 成俔, 1439–1504) records the following description of the Korean font-casting process: A potential solution to the linguistic and cultural bottleneck that held back movable type in Korea for 200 years appeared in the early 15th century—a generation before Gutenberg would begin working on his own movable-type invention in Europe—when Sejong the Great devised a simplified
alphabet An alphabet is a standardized set of basic written graphemes (called letters) that represent the phonemes of certain spoken languages. Not all writing systems represent language in this way; in a syllabary, each character represents a syllab ...
of 24 characters (
hangul The Korean alphabet, known as Hangul, . Hangul may also be written as following South Korea's standard Romanization. ( ) in South Korea and Chosŏn'gŭl in North Korea, is the modern official writing system for the Korean language. The le ...
) for use by the common people, which could have made the typecasting and compositing process more feasible. But Korea's cultural elite, "appalled at the idea of losing
hanja Hanja (Hangul: ; Hanja: , ), alternatively known as Hancha, are Chinese characters () used in the writing of Korean. Hanja was used as early as the Gojoseon period, the first ever Korean kingdom. (, ) refers to Sino-Korean vocabulary, ...
, the badge of their elitism", stifled the adoption of the new alphabet. A "
Confucian Confucianism, also known as Ruism or Ru classicism, is a system of thought and behavior originating in ancient China. Variously described as tradition, a philosophy, a religion, a humanistic or rationalistic religion, a way of governing, or ...
prohibition on the commercialization of printing" also obstructed the proliferation of movable type, restricting the distribution of books produced using the new method to the government. 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.Burke Scholarly debate and speculation has occurred as to whether Eastern movable type spread to Europe between the late 14th century and early 15th centuries.
Thomas Franklin Carter Thomas Francis Carter (1882–1925) was an American scholar who wrote the first book-length history in the West on the Chinese origins of printing. Thomas Francis Carter's early life is not well documented. The first we know of him is that he gra ...
, ''The Invention of Printing in China and its Spread Westward'', The Ronald Press, NY 2nd ed. 1955, pp. 176–178
For example, authoritative historians
Frances Gies and Joseph Gies Frances Gies (June 10, 1915 – December 18, 2013) and Joseph Gies (October 8, 1916 – April 13, 2006) were historians and writers who collaborated on a number of books about the Middle Ages, and also wrote individual works. They were husb ...
claimed that "The Asian priority of invention movable type is now firmly established, and that Chinese-Korean technique, or a report of it traveled westward is almost certain." Gies, Frances and Gies, Joseph (1994) ''Cathedral, Forge, and Waterwheel: Technology and Invention in the Middle Age'', New York : HarperCollins, , p. 241. However, Joseph P. McDermott claimed that "No text indicates the presence or knowledge of any kind of Asian movable type or movable type imprint in Europe before 1450. The material evidence is even more conclusive."


Europe

Johannes Gutenberg of
Mainz Mainz () is the capital and largest city of Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. Mainz is on the left bank of the Rhine, opposite to the place that the Main joins the Rhine. Downstream of the confluence, the Rhine flows to the north-west, with Ma ...
, Germany, is acknowledged as the first to invent a metal movable-type printing system in Europe: the
printing press A printing press is a mechanical device for applying pressure to an inked surface resting upon a print medium (such as paper or cloth), thereby transferring the ink. It marked a dramatic improvement on earlier printing methods in which the ...
, 78 years after Jikji (the oldest preserved book printed with movable metal type) had been printed in Korea. Gutenberg, as a
goldsmith A goldsmith is a metalworker who specializes in working with gold and other precious metals. Nowadays they mainly specialize in jewelry-making but historically, goldsmiths have also made silverware, platters, goblets, decorative and servicea ...
, knew techniques of cutting punches for making coins from moulds. Between 1436 and 1450 he developed hardware and techniques for casting letters from
matrices Matrix most commonly refers to: * ''The Matrix'' (franchise), an American media franchise ** ''The Matrix'', a 1999 science-fiction action film ** "The Matrix", a fictional setting, a virtual reality environment, within ''The Matrix'' (franchis ...
using a device called the
hand mould A hand mold is a simple mold used for low quantity work. It is used in the injection molding and the printing industry. It is made by a hand injection molding machine. It is a simple machine which contains a barrel, handle, nozzle, mold and heater ...
. 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, scribes copied books by hand on scrolls and paper, or print-makers printed texts from hand-carved wooden blocks. Either process took a long time; even a small book could take months to complete. Because carved letters or blocks were flimsy and the wood susceptible to ink, the blocks had a limited lifespan. Gutenberg and his associates developed oil-based inks ideally suited to printing with a press on paper, and the first Latin
typeface A typeface (or font family) is the design of lettering that can include variations in size, weight (e.g. bold), slope (e.g. italic), width (e.g. condensed), and so on. Each of these variations of the typeface is a font. There are thousands o ...
s. His method of casting type may have differed 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. 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, causing variants and anomalies, and that the punch-matrix system came into use possibly around the 1470s. 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 printing press in 1457 to 110 presses by 1480, with 50 of them in
Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...
.
Venice Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 bridges. The isla ...
quickly became the centre of typographic and printing activity. Significant contributions came from Nicolas Jenson,
Francesco Griffo Francesco Griffo (1450–1518), also called Francesco da Bologna, was a fifteenth-century Italian punchcutter. He worked for Aldus Manutius, designing the printer's more important humanist typefaces, including the first italic type. He cut Roman, ...
, Aldus Manutius, and other printers of late 15th-century Europe. Gutenberg's movable type printing system offered a number of advantages over previous movable type techniques. The lead-antimony-tin alloy used by Gutenberg had half the melting temperature of bronze, making it easier to cast the type and aided the use of reusable metal matrix moulds instead of the expendable sand and clay moulds. The use of
antimony Antimony is a chemical element with the symbol Sb (from la, stibium) and atomic number 51. A lustrous gray metalloid, it is found in nature mainly as the sulfide mineral stibnite (Sb2S3). Antimony compounds have been known since ancient t ...
alloy increased hardness of the type compared to lead and tin for improved durability of the type. The reusable metal matrix allowed a single experienced worker to produce 4,000 to 5,000 individual types a day, while Wang Chen had artisans working 2 years to make 60,000 wooden types.


Type-founding


Stages

Type-founding as practised in Europe and the West consists of three stages: ;
Punchcutting Punchcutting is a craft used in traditional typography to cut letter punches in steel as the first stage of making metal type. Steel punches in the shape of the letter would be used to stamp matrices into copper, which were locked into a mould s ...
: If the glyph design includes enclosed spaces ( counters) then a
counterpunch ''CounterPunch'' is a left-wing online magazine. Content includes a free section published five days a week as well as a subscriber-only area called CounterPunch+, where original articles are published weekly. ''CounterPunch'' is based in the Unit ...
is made. The counter shapes are transferred in relief ( cameo) onto the end of a rectangular bar of mild steel using a specialized
engraving Engraving is the practice of incising a design onto a hard, usually flat surface by cutting grooves into it with a burin. The result may be a decorated object in itself, as when silver, gold, steel, or glass are engraved, or may provide an in ...
tool called a graver. The finished counterpunch is hardened by heating and quenching ( tempering), or exposure to a cyanide solution (
case hardening Case-hardening or surface hardening is the process of hardening the surface of a metal object while allowing the metal deeper underneath to remain soft, thus forming a thin layer of harder metal at the surface. For iron or steel with low carbon ...
). The counterpunch is then struck against the end of a similar rectangular steel bar—the letterpunch—to impress the counter shapes as recessed spaces ( intaglio). The outer profile of the glyph is completed by scraping away with a graver the material outside the counter spaces, leaving only the stroke or lines of the glyph. Progress toward the finished design is checked by successive ''smoke proofs''; temporary prints made from a thin coating of carbon deposited on the punch surface by a candle flame. The finished letter punch is finally hardened to withstand the rigours of reproduction by striking. One counterpunch and one letterpunch are produced for every letter or glyph making up a complete font. ; Matrix: The letterpunch is used to strike a blank die of soft metal to make a negative letter mould, called a matrix. ; Casting: The matrix is inserted into the bottom of a device called a ''hand mould''. The mould is clamped shut and molten type metal alloy (consisting mostly of
lead Lead is a chemical element with the symbol Pb (from the Latin ) and atomic number 82. It is a heavy metal that is denser than most common materials. Lead is soft and malleable, and also has a relatively low melting point. When freshly cu ...
and
tin Tin is a chemical element with the symbol Sn (from la, stannum) and atomic number 50. Tin is a silvery-coloured metal. Tin is soft enough to be cut with little force and a bar of tin can be bent by hand with little effort. When bent, t ...
, with a small amount of
antimony Antimony is a chemical element with the symbol Sb (from la, stibium) and atomic number 51. A lustrous gray metalloid, it is found in nature mainly as the sulfide mineral stibnite (Sb2S3). Antimony compounds have been known since ancient t ...
for hardening) is poured into a cavity from the top. Antimony has the rare property of expanding as it cools, giving the casting sharp edges. When the type metal has sufficiently cooled, the mould is unlocked and a rectangular block approximately long, called a ''sort'', is extracted. Excess casting on the end of the sort, called the ''tang'', is later removed to make the sort the precise height required for printing, known as "type height".


National traditions

The type-height varied in different countries. The Monotype Corporation Limited in London UK produced moulds in various heights: * : United Kingdom, Canada, U.S. * : France, Germany, Switzerland and most other European countries * : Belgium height * : Dutch height A Dutch printer's manual mentions a tiny difference between French and German Height: * 62.027 points Didot = = English height * 62.666 points Didot = = French height * 62.685 points Didot = = German height * 66.047 points Didot = = Dutch Height Tiny differences in type-height can cause quite bold images of characters. At the end of the 19th century there were only two typefoundries left in the Netherlands: Johan Enschedé & Zonen, at Haarlem, and Lettergieterij Amsterdam, voorheen Tetterode. They both had their own type-height: Enschedé: 65 23/24 points Didot, and Amsterdam: 66 1/24 points Didot – enough difference to prevent a combined use of fonts from the two typefoundries: Enschede would be too light, or otherwise the Amsterdam-font would print rather bold. This was a way of keeping clients. In 1905 the Dutch governmental , later: "State-printery" () decided during a reorganisation to use a standard type-height of 63 points Didot. , actually Belgium-height, but this fact was not widely known.


Typesetting

Modern, factory-produced movable type was available in the late 19th century. It was held in the printing shop in a ''job case'', a drawer about 2 inches high, a yard wide, and about two feet deep, with many small compartments for the various letters and ligatures. The most popular and accepted of the job case designs in America was the California Job Case, which took its name from the Pacific coast location of the foundries that made the case popular. Traditionally, the capital letters were stored in a separate drawer or case that was located above the case that held the other letters; this is why capital letters are called "upper case" characters while the non-capitals are "lower case". Compartments also held spacers, which are blocks of blank type used to separate words and fill out a line of type, such as ''em'' and ''en'' quads (''quadrats'', or spaces. A ''quadrat'' is a block of type whose face is lower than the printing letters so that it does not itself print.). An em space was the width of a capital letter "M" – as wide as it was high – while an en space referred to a space half the width of its height (usually the dimensions for a capital "N"). Individual letters are assembled into words and lines of text with the aid of a
composing stick In letterpress printing and typesetting, a composing stick is a tray-like tool used to assemble pieces of metal type into words and lines, which are then transferred to a ''galley'' before being locked into a ''forme'' and printed. Many composin ...
, and the whole assembly is tightly bound together to make up a page image called a ''forme'', where all letter faces are exactly the same height to form a flat surface of type. The forme is mounted on a
printing press A printing press is a mechanical device for applying pressure to an inked surface resting upon a print medium (such as paper or cloth), thereby transferring the ink. It marked a dramatic improvement on earlier printing methods in which the ...
, a thin coating of viscous ink is applied, and impressions are made on paper under great pressure in the press. "Sorts" is the term given to special characters not freely available in the typical type case, such as the "@" mark.


Metal type combined with other methods

Sometimes, it is erroneously stated that printing with metal type replaced the earlier methods. In the industrial era printing methods would be chosen to suit the purpose. For example, when printing large scale letters in posters etc. the metal type would have proved too heavy and economically unviable. Thus, large scale type was made as carved wood blocks as well as ceramics plates.Meggs, Philip B., Purvis, Alston W. "Graphic Design and the Industrial Revolution" ''History of Graphic Design''. Hoboken, N.J: Wiley, 2006. p. 139. Also in many cases where large scale text was required, it was simpler to hand the job to a sign painter than a printer. Images could be printed together with movable type if they were made as
woodcut Woodcut is a relief printing technique in printmaking. An artist carves an image into the surface of a block of wood—typically with gouges—leaving the printing parts level with the surface while removing the non-printing parts. Areas tha ...
s or
wood engraving Wood engraving is a printmaking technique, in which an artist works an image or ''matrix'' of images into a block of wood. Functionally a variety of woodcut, it uses relief printing, where the artist applies ink to the face of the block and ...
s as long as the blocks were made to the same type height. If intaglio methods, such as copper plates, were used for the images, then images and the text would have required separate print runs on different machines.


See also

*
History of printing in East Asia Printing in East Asia originated from the Han dynasty (220 BCE – 206 CE) in China, evolving from ink rubbings made on paper or cloth from texts on stone tables used during the Han. Printing is considered one of the Four Great Inventions of China ...
*
History of Western typography Modern typographers view typography as a craft with a very long history tracing its origins back to the first punches and dies used to make seals and coinage currency in ancient times. The basic elements of typography are at least as old as ...
*
Letterpress printing Letterpress printing is a technique of relief printing. Using a printing press, the process allows many copies to be produced by repeated direct impression of an inked, raised surface against sheets or a continuous roll of paper. A worker com ...
*
Odhecaton The ''Harmonice Musices Odhecaton'' (One Hundred Songs of Harmonic Music, also known simply as the ''Odhecaton'') is an anthology of polyphonic secular songs published by Ottaviano Petrucci in 1501 in Venice. It is the first book of polyphonic mu ...
– the first sheet music printed with movable type * Spread of European movable type printing *
Type foundry A type foundry is a company that designs or distributes typefaces. Before digital typography, type foundries manufactured and sold metal and wood typefaces for hand typesetting, and matrices for line-casting machines like the Linotype and M ...
*
Typesetting Typesetting is the composition of text by means of arranging physical ''type'' (or ''sort'') in mechanical systems or '' glyphs'' in digital systems representing '' characters'' (letters and other symbols).Dictionary.com Unabridged. Random ...
*
Style guides A style guide or manual of style is a set of standards for the writing, formatting, and design of documents. It is often called a style sheet, although that term also has multiple other meanings. The standards can be applied either for gener ...


References


Further reading

* Nesbitt, Alexander. ''The History and Technique of Lettering'' (c) 1957, Dover Publications, Inc. , Library of Congress Catalogue Card Number: 57-13116. The Dover edition is an abridged and corrected republication of the work originally published in 1950 by Prentice-Hall, Inc. under the title ''Lettering: The History and Technique of Lettering as Design''. * The classic manual of hand-press technology is : *


External links


International Printing Museum Web site
* :Typographical symbols – Articles related to typographical symbols
Demonstration of Goryeo Period Korean Movable Type Printing

Movable type of printing
at Oxford Reference {{Authority control Book arts Chinese inventions History of printing Relief printing Typography