History of the printing press

The printing press is a 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 cloth, paper or other medium was brushed or rubbed repeatedly to achieve the transfer of ink. Typically used for texts, the invention and spread of the printing press was one of the most influential events in the second millennium.

In Germany, around 1440, goldsmith Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press, which started the Printing Revolution. Modeled on the design of existing screw presses, a single Renaissance printing press could produce up to 3,600 pages per workday, compared to forty by typographic hand-printing and a few by hand-copying.