Many routes to the printed pageOur World

Printing

Follow printing across East Asia and Europe, from carved blocks to reusable type.

Subject guide · scope, chapters & sources ↗

Curated overview · A technology with many contributors, not one universal inventor. These links connect developments; they do not claim a proven direct transmission from Bi Sheng to Gutenberg.

c. 700 CEEast Asia

Printing with carved blocks

Woodblock printing develops in Tang China.

Printed Buddhist frontispiece showing a seated Buddha teaching an assembled group. — Unknown Tang-dynasty printer; commissioned by Wang Jie; British Library scan · Public domain

868 CEEast Asia

A dated Diamond Sutra

A surviving Buddhist scroll records an early printed achievement.

1041–1048 CEEast Asia

Bi Sheng’s movable type

Separate earthenware characters can be rearranged.

Two facing Jikji pages with vertical columns of printed characters. — Unknown Goryeo printers; digitisation by Bibliothèque nationale de France · Public domain

1377 CEEast Asia

Jikji is printed in Korea

Metal type produces a Buddhist book at Cheongju.

c. 1450 CEEurope

Print accelerates exchange

Movable type makes knowledge easier to reproduce.