The History Of Printing

The printing industry has come a long way since Johan Gutenberg invented the first press in 1439. Today we all use printers on a near daily basis and think nothing of it. Why would we, for many of us they have been a standard part of daily life for as long as we can remember.

Yet this remarkable machine has enjoyed an amazing revolution since Gutenberg’s invention nearly 600 years ago. Manually operated, huge and expensive, the printing press remained that way for hundreds of years and didn’t make it into daily life until the 1900s.

Let’s take a look at that first press and how it evolved into the super-fast, high quality, relatively low cost laser and inkjet printers we take for granted today.

Gutenberg Press

Taking its name from its inventor Johan Gutenberg, a German goldsmith, the Gutenberg press was invented in 1439 and constructed entirely of wood. It is considered the single most important revolution in the printing industry and, though it had to be manually operated, right down to inking the text blocks, it greatly sped up the printing of books.

More importantly, it opened the door to further inventions in printing, though it took a very long time for anyone to make a major step forward – nearly 400 years!

Steam Printing Press

Invented in the 1800s, the steam printing press was the next major step forwarding the printing industry. Gutenberg’s original design had remained largely unchanged until then.

The steam press, constructed of cast iron, allowed double the print size and required 90% less force to print properly. It could still only produce 250 prints an hour, nothing by today’s standards, until 1814 when the first automatic press invented, greatly increasing the efficiency of printing books and newspapers.

Compare that to today’s fully automatic digital printing presses, which are capable of handling any colour, font and print size, can produce a whole newspaper AND fold it and can print at 230 A4 pages per minute at 1200 dots per inch!

Photocopiers

The first photocopier was invented in the mid 1940s by Chester Carlson and the first Xerox machine, the Model A made its appearance soon after, though it was very difficult to operate and required 39 steps to produce a single copy.

The first automatic photocopier was introduced in 1959 and despite being able to produce just seven copies a minute, it still cost £15,000!

Desktop Printers

Desktop printers appeared much later, with the introduction of the HP LaserJet in 1984, the first mass produced version. Its £1750 price tag meant it was mainly an office based printer.

As technology has moved on the price has fallen and the printing quality and speed has risen to the point now where most people can afford to have a top quality desktop printer in their homes.

Businesses can now take advantage of fast, cheap printing, saving money with cheap business cards, cheap stationery, even cheap brochures and cheap flyers.

On the expensive side, huge, high quality posters the size of buildings can now be produced in full colour.

Who knows where the printing industry will go next?