History of printing technology from ancient to present

History of printing technology from ancient times to the present:

The development history and development history of printing, the use of printing industry originated in China, is one of the four great inventions in ancient China. Seals became popular with the introduction of paper and ink during the Jin Dynasty in China around the 3rd century AD. In the 4th century, Taoist seals were enlarged to print charms with slightly more text. This is actually a way of printing words in the form of a stamp.

At the same time, stele rubbing was also developing, combining the seal and rubbing, and then expanding the seal into a layout, dipping in ink, copying the rubbing, and spreading the paper to the plate printing, that is, engraving printing. Experts believe that the birth of block printing around the 7th century in the early Tang Dynasty. This is the earliest printing in the world.

Overplate color printing is the earliest color printing in the world. It is a complex and high-precision printing technology developed on the basis of block printing. In the early days of the invention of overprinting, it was generally only possible to print overprints of two colors of ink and red ink, which was called the ink book, or double printing. Later, the technology became more and more perfect, and then developed into four colors and five colors to overprint called four-color books, five-color books, etc.

Duplex color printing was born in our country, but there is still no clear conclusion about when it was invented. According to historical records, during the Northern Song Dynasty (960-1127), copper plates printed in blue, blue, and red "cross" have appeared, but no physical objects have been found. At the end of the Yuan Dynasty (the middle and late 14th century), there was already a two-color overprint of "Wuwen Monk Notes Gold and steel Classics".

In 1974, three painted paintings of "Nanwu Shakyani Buddha" were discovered in Fogong Temple, Yingxian County, Shanxi Province. According to other cultural relics discovered at the same time, its printing date should be in the Liao Dynasty and (983-1012 years). It seems that the invention of color printing technology is not later than this, and the exact age remains to be discovered and studied by archeologists.

Most of the color prints we can see today are from the Wanli period of the Ming Dynasty, which is the development period of color printing in our country, and many prints are extremely exquisite. By the Qing Dynasty, the technology of four-color overprinting, five-color overprinting and even more color overprinting had matured and reached a new level.

Movable type printing -- according to Shen Kuo's "Mengxi Pen Talk" "Volume 18" record. The earliest invention of movable type printing is Bi Sheng of the Song Dynasty, the time is 1041-143 AD. After Bi Sheng invented movable type printing, China also appeared a lot of other materials of movable type, wood type, tin type, copper type and lead type and so on. But only the wooden type survived.

As for the introduction of modern western lead type printing. It was printed in 1590 in Macau, China, when the book "Japanese Envoy to Rome" was printed. It is worth mentioning the use of wooden type, Yuan Dynasty Wang Zhen when he was a county magistrate in Jingde County, Anhui Province, he wrote a great academic work "Agricultural Book", because of the number of words, the use of block printing not only cost a lot of money, but also time-consuming and laborious.

Later, the carpenter was asked to carve 30,000 wooden characters, and the first printing of more than 60,000 words of the County Annals of Jingde County in Dade was successful. In order to facilitate typesetting, Wang Zhen invented the rotary typesetting frame, so that typesetting from completely manual to the use of simple machinery, improving efficiency. He also carefully recorded and sorted out the production methods and operating procedures of wooden type and wrote a book called The Method of Making Movable Type.

Following Shen Kuo's record of Bi Sheng's movable type printing, engraving is another major historical document that records the invention of movable type printing in our country. Movable type printing was invented in China nearly 400 years earlier than in the West. Moreover, compared with block printing, movable type printing has the advantages of saving time and materials, and has made indelible contributions to the development of printing and cultural undertakings in China and the world.

Modern type printing is also a kind of movable type printing. Automatic typesetter. The words to be cast were entered by a typewriter-like keyboard, and after each line was finished, the machine automatically lowered the molds of those words, and the alloy lead was automatically cast into the typed words. Its operation and automatic typesetting also rely on keyboard input, but get a single word, than manual typesetting further.

Mimeograph technology -- Mimeograph is also called hole plate printing. This printing method is to use an iron pen on paper, cloth or metal thin iron to carve out micro-holes, this plate is placed on paper or other types of substrate, add ink, and use a roller and a scraper to make the ink from the micro-holes on the engraving plate to the paper. China as early as 1200 years ago in the Tang Dynasty appeared similar to today's mimeograph technology hollow paper printing and screen leakage method.