Even those who today prefer to deal with modern electronic publications and reading devices, at least once in their lives picked up a book printed on paper. The printed book is one of the greatest inventions of mankind, which makes it possible to plunge into the world of knowledge and artistic images. It is generally accepted that typography was invented in the middle of the 15th century.
From the history of typography
Books existed long before the invention of typography. But before they were written by hand, and then repeatedly copied, making the right number of copies. Such technology was extremely imperfect, it took a lot of time and energy. In addition, when copying books, errors and distortions almost always crept into the text. Manuscript books were very expensive, and therefore could not find wide distribution.
The first books made by printing appeared, apparently, in China and Korea as far back as the 9th century BC. For these purposes, special printed boards were used. The text that was required to be reproduced on paper was drawn in mirror image, and then cut out on the surface of a flat piece of wood with a sharp tool. The resulting relief image was smeared with paint and pressed tightly to the sheet. The result was a print that repeated the source text.
This method, however, did not find wide distribution in China, since each time it was necessary to cut out the entire text on a printed board for a long time. Some craftsmen already tried to execute a form of moving signs, but the number of characters in Chinese writing was so great that such a method was very time-consuming and did not justify itself.
