Printing

For other articles that otherwise might have the same name, see Print (disambiguation).

The folder of newspaper web offset printing press

Printing is a process for production of texts and images, typically with ink on paper using a printing press. It is often carried out as a large-scale industrial process, and is an essential part of publishing and transaction printing.

History

Printing was first conceived and developed in China. Primitive woodblock printing was already in use by the 6th century in China. 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 scripture during the Zhenguan years (627~649 C.E.). The oldest known Chinese surviving printed work is a woodblock-printed Buddhist scripture of Wu Zetian period (684~705 C.E.); discovered in Tubofan, Xinjiang province, China in 1906, it is now stored in a calligraphy museum in Tokyo, Japan. Printing is considered one of the Four Great Inventions of ancient China.

The oldest known Korean surviving printed document is a Buddhist scripture, which dates to 751 [1] The oldest surviving book printed using the more sophisticated block printing, the Chinese Diamond Sutra (a Buddhist scripture), dates from 868. The movable type printer was first invented by Bi Sheng in 1041 during Song Dynasty China. In a memorial to the throne in 1023, Northern Song Dynasty China, it recorded that the central government at that time used copperplate to print the paper money also the movable copper-block to print the numbers and characters on the money, nowadays we can find these shadows from the Song paper money. Later in the Jin Dynasty, people used the same but more developed technique to print paper money and formal official documents, the typical example of this kind of movable copper-block printing is a printed "check" of Jin Dynasty in the year of 1215. The world's first movable type metal printing press was invented in Korea in 1234 by Chwe Yun-ui during the Goryeo Dynasty. By the 12th and 13th century many Chinese libraries contained tens of thousands of printed books. The oldest extant movable metal-type book is the Jikji, printed in 1377 in Korea.

There is little direct evidence, but it is highly probable that the Far East printing technology diffused into Europe through the trade routes from China which went through India and on through the Arabic world. Johann Gutenberg, of the German city of Mainz, developed European printing technology in 1440. Johann Fust and Peter Schöffer experimented with him in Mainz. Basing the design of his machine on a wine-press, Gutenberg developed the use of raised and movable type, and from the start used oil-based inks.

The development of the printing press revolutionized communication and book production leading to the spread of knowledge. 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 1476 a printing press was developed in England by William Caxton. The Italian Juan Pablos set up an imported press in Mexico City in 1539. Stephen Day was the first to build a printing press in North America at Massachusetts Bay in 1628, and helped establish the Cambridge Press.

Early print shops (near the time of Gutenberg) were run by "master printers." These printers owned shops, selected and edited manuscripts, determined the sizes of print runs, sold the works they produced, raised capital and organized distribution.

• Early print shop apprentices:

Usually between the ages of 15 and 20, worked for master printers. Apprentices were not required to be literate, and literacy rates at the time were very low, in comparison to today. Apprentices prepared ink, dampened sheets of paper, and assisted at the press. An apprentice who wished to learn to become a compositor had to learn Latin and spend time under the supervision of a journeyman.

• Early Journeyman printers: After completing their apprenticeships, journeyman printers were free to roam Europe with their tools of trade and print where they journeyed to. This facilitated the spread of printing to areas that were less print-centred.

• Early Compositors: Those who set the type for printing.

• Early Pressmen: the person who ran the press. This was physically labour intensive.

Master print shops became the cultural centre for literati.

The earliest-known image of a European, Gutenberg-style print shop is the Dance of Death by Matthias Huss, at Lyon, 1499. This image depicts a compositor standing at a compositor's case being grabbed by a skeleton. The case is raised to facilitate his work. The image also shows a pressman being grabbed by a skeleton. To the right of the print shop a bookshop is shown.

In Prints and Visual Communication, William Ivins offers the following concise history of a series of rapid innovations in image and type printing at the end of the eighteenth century:

At the end of the eighteenth century there were several remarkable innovations in the graphic techniques and those that were utilized to make their materials. Bewick developed the method of using engraving tools on the end of the wood. Senefelder discovered lithography. Blake made relief etchings. Early in the nineteenth century Stanhope, George E. Clymer, Koenig and others introduced new kinds of type presses, which for strength surpassed anything that had previously been known.

In 2006 there are approximately 30,700 printing companies in the United States, accounting for $112 billion, according to the 2006 U.S. Industry & Market Outlook by Barnes Reports. Print jobs that move through the Internet made up 12.5% of the total U.S. Printing market last year, according to research firm InfoTrend/CAP Ventures.

Methods and Formats of Managing Financial Outlay

Court records from the city of Mainz document that Johannes Fust was, for some time, Gutenberg's financial backer.

By the sixteenth century jobs associated with printing were becoming increasingly specialized. Structures supporting publishers were more and more complex, leading to this division of labour. In Europe between 1500 and 1700 the role of the Master Printer was dying out and giving way to the bookseller – publisher. Printing during this period had a stronger commercial imperative than previously. Risks associated with the industry however were substantial, although dependent on the nature of the publication.

Bookseller publishers negotiated at trade fairs and at print shops. Jobbing work appeared in which printers did menial tasks in the beginning of their careers to support themselves.

1500 – 1700: Publishers developed several new methods of funding projects.

1. Cooperative associations/publication syndicates—a number of individuals shared the risks associated with printing and shared in the profit. This was pioneered by the French.

2. Subscription publishing—pioneered by the English in the early 17th century. A prospectus for a publication was drawn up by a publisher to raise funding. The prospectus was given to potential buyers who signed up for a copy. If there were not enough subscriptions the publication did not go ahead. Lists of subscribers were included in the books as endorsements. If enough people subscribed a reprint might occur. Some authors used subscription publication to bypass the publisher entirely.

3. Installment publishing—books were issued in parts until a complete book had been issued. This was not necessarily done under a specific time-allotment. It was an effective method of spreading cost over a period of time. It also allowed earlier returns on investment to help cover production costs of subsequent installments.

The Mechanick Exercises, by Joseph Moxon, in London, 1683, was said to be the first publication done in installments.

Publishing trade organizations allowed publishers to organize business concerns collectively. Systems of self-regulation occurred in these arrangements. For example, if one publisher did something to irritate other publishers he would be controlled by peer pressure. These arrangements helped deal with labour unrest among journeymen, who faced difficult working conditions. Brotherhoods predated unions, without the formal regulations now associated with unions.

Modern printing technology

Books and newspapers are printed today using the technique of offset lithography. Other common techniques include

• flexography used for packaging, labels, newspapers
• relief print, (mainly used for catalogues),
• screen printing from T-shirts to floor tiles
• rotogravure mainly used for magazines and packaging,
• inkjet used when you have to print a small number of books, packaging and to print a lot of materials from high quality papers to simulate offset print to floor tiles
• hot wax dye transfer
• laser printing mainly used in offices and for transactional printing (bills, bank documents).

State-of-the-art presses use to mix more printing techniques so you can have an offset machine with a flexo section for the varnishing of the product they are printing or a digital printing unit.

Digital Printing

Printing at home or in an office or engineering environment is subdivided into:

• small format (up to ledger size paper)
• wide format (up to 3' or 914mm wide rolls of paper).

Beyond that, there are the following methods:

• heat transfer (like old fax machines or even modern receipt printers that apply heat to special paper, which turns black as directed to form the printed image)
• blueprint (chemical process)
• inkjet (including bubble-jet - where ink is sprayed onto the paper to create the desired image)
• laser (where toner consisting primarily of polymer with pigment of the desired colours is melted and applied directly to the paper to create the desired image.)

Vendors typically stress the total cost to operate the equipment, involving complex calculations that include all cost factors involved in the operation as well as the capital equipment costs, amortisation, etc. For the most part, toner systems beat inkjet in the long run, whereas inkjets are less expensive in the initial purchase price.

Professional digital printing (using toner) primarily uses an electrical charge to transfer toner or liquid ink to the substrate it is printed on. Digital print quality has steadily improved from color and black & white copiers to sophisticated colour digital presses like the Xerox iGen3, the Kodak Nexpress and the HP Indigo series presses. The iGen3 and Nexpress use toner particles and the Indigo uses liquid ink. All three are made for small runs and variable data, and rival offset in quality. Digital offset presses are called direct imaging presses; although these receive computer files and automatically turn them into print-ready plates, they cannot do variable data.

Small press and fanzines generally use Digital printing or more rarely xerography. Prior to the introduction of cheap photocopying the use of machines such as the spirit duplicator, hectograph, and mimeograph was common.

See also

• Color printing
• Letterpress printing
• Flexography
• Intaglio
• Typography
• Johannes Gutenberg
• Jang Young Sil
• printmaking
• on-line printing

External links

• American Printing History Association - numerous links to online resources and other organizations
• The development of book and printing. English website of the Gutenberg-Museum Mainz (Germany)
• Planet Typography - history of printing - selection of international sites dedicated to the history of printing

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• Gill Saunders and Rosie Miles Prints Now : Directions and Definitions Victoria and Albert Museum (May 1, 2006) ISBN 1-85177-480-7

• Woong-Jin-Wee-In-Jun-Gi #11 Jang Young Sil by Baek Sauk Gi. Copyright 1987 Woongjin Publishing Co., Ltd. Pg. 61.

• Steinberg, S.H. Five Hundred Years of Printing (London and Newcastle: The British Library and Oak Knoll Press), 1996.

• Nesbitt, Alexander The History and Technique of Lettering, Dover Books, 1957

• Tam, Pui-Wing The New Paper Trail, The Wall Street Journal Online, February 13, 2006 Pg.R8

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