Editing Movable type (section)

==== Europe ====
{{Main|History of Western typography|Spread of European movable type printing}}

[[File:Printing towns incunabula.svg|thumb|The [[Printing Revolution]] in the 15th century: Within several decades around 270 European towns took up movable-type printing.<ref name="ISTC">{{cite web | url = http://www.bl.uk/catalogues/istc/index.html | title = Incunabula Short Title Catalogue | publisher = [[British Library]] | access-date = 2 March 2011 | archive-date = 12 March 2011 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20110312185857/http://www.bl.uk/catalogues/istc/index.html | url-status = live }}</ref>]]
[[File:European Output of Printed Books ca. 1450–1800.svg|thumb|European output of movable-type printing from [[Johannes Gutenberg|Gutenberg]] to 1800<ref>{{cite journal |last1= Buringh |first1= Eltjo |last2= van Zanden |first2= Jan Luiten |title= Charting the 'Rise of the West': Manuscripts and Printed Books in Europe, A Long-Term Perspective from the Sixth through Eighteenth Centuries |journal= The Journal of Economic History |volume= 69 |issue= 2 |year= 2009 |pages= 409–445 |jstor= 40263962 |postscript= p.&nbsp;417, table 2.|doi= 10.1017/S0022050709000837 |s2cid= 154362112 }}</ref>]]

[[Johannes Gutenberg]] of [[Mainz]], Germany, invented the [[printing press]], using a metal movable type system. Gutenberg, as a [[goldsmith]], knew techniques of [[Punchcutting|cutting punches]] for making coins from moulds. Between 1436 and 1450 he developed hardware and techniques for casting letters from [[Matrix (printing)|matrices]] using a device called the [[hand mould]].<ref name="meggs58-69" /> Gutenberg's key invention and contribution to movable-type printing in Europe, the hand mould, was the first practical means of making cheap copies of letterpunches in the vast quantities needed to print complete books, making the movable-type printing process a viable enterprise.{{citation needed|date=August 2022}}

Before Gutenberg, scribes copied books by hand on scrolls and paper, or print-makers printed texts from hand-carved wooden blocks. Either process took a long time; even a small book could take months to complete. Because carved letters or blocks were flimsy and the wood susceptible to ink, the blocks had a limited lifespan.{{citation needed|date=August 2022}}

Gutenberg and his associates developed oil-based inks ideally suited to printing with a [[printing press|press]] on paper, and the first Latin [[typeface]]s. His method of casting type may have differed from the hand-mould used in subsequent decades. Detailed analysis of the type used in his 42-line Bible has revealed irregularities in some of the characters that cannot be attributed to ink spread or type wear under the pressure of the press. Scholars conjecture that the type pieces may have been cast from a series of matrices made with a series of individual stroke punches, producing many different versions of the same glyph.<ref>{{cite conference |first = Blaise |last = Agüera y Arcas |author2= Paul Needham |title = Computational analytical bibliography |book-title = Proceedings Bibliopolis Conference ''The future history of the book'' |publisher = [[Koninklijke Bibliotheek, National Library of the Netherlands|Koninklijke Bibliotheek]] |date = November 2002 |location = [[The Hague]] ([[Netherlands]])}}</ref>{{request quotation|date=January 2019}}[[File:Miklós Andor in the page-setting room of Athenaeum Printing House - cca. 1920 (1).tiff|thumb|Editing with movable metal – {{circa|1920}}]] It has also been suggested{{by whom|date=January 2019}} that the method used by Gutenberg involved using a single punch to make a mould, but the mould was such that the process of taking the type out disturbed the casting, causing variants and anomalies, and that the punch-matrix system came into use possibly around the 1470s.<ref>{{cite web|url= http://www.open2.net/home/view?entityID=15599&jsp=themed_learning%2Fexpanding_viewer&sessionID=-1161756493749&entityName=object |title= What Did Gutenberg Invent?—Discovery |access-date= 2006-10-25 |year= 2006 |publisher= BBC / [[Open University]] }}{{dead link|date= June 2016|bot= medic}}{{cbignore|bot= medic}}</ref>
This raises the possibility that the development of movable type in the West may have been progressive rather than a single innovation.<ref>{{cite book  |first = James L.  |last = Adams |title = Flying Buttresses, Entropy and O-Rings: the World of an Engineer |year = 1993 |publisher = [[Harvard University Press]] |url = https://books.google.com/books?id=xfpj6Ad9Jh0C |page = 80 |quote = There are printed materials from Holland that supposedly predate the Mainz shop. Early work on movable type in France was also under way.|isbn = 9780674306899}}</ref>

Gutenberg's movable-type printing system spread rapidly across Europe, from the single Mainz printing press in 1457 to 110 presses by 1480, with 50 of them in [[Italy]]. [[Venice]] quickly became the centre of typographic and printing activity. Significant contributions came from [[Nicolas Jenson]], [[Francesco Griffo]], [[Aldus Manutius]], and other printers of late 15th-century Europe. Gutenberg's movable type printing system offered a number of advantages over previous movable type techniques. The lead-antimony-tin alloy used by Gutenberg had half the melting temperature of bronze,<ref>{{Cite web | url=http://letterpressprinting.com.au/page40.htm | title=Machine Composition and Type Metal | access-date=2019-03-07 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190303115141/http://letterpressprinting.com.au/page40.htm | archive-date=2019-03-03 | url-status=dead }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.onlinemetals.com/meltpt.cfm |title=Melting Points of Metals |website=Onlinemetals.com |url-status=dead |access-date=2019-03-07 |archive-date=2019-03-07 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190307112302/https://www.onlinemetals.com/meltpt.cfm}}</ref> making it easier to cast the type and aided the use of reusable metal matrix moulds instead of the expendable sand and clay moulds. The use of [[antimony]] alloy increased hardness of the type compared to lead and tin<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.pnjresources.com/Hardness%20of%20Lead%20Alloys.htm |title=Hardness of Lead Alloys |access-date=2019-03-07 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190226222939/http://www.pnjresources.com/Hardness%20of%20Lead%20Alloys.htm |archive-date=2019-02-26 |url-status=dead }}</ref> for improved durability of the type. The reusable metal matrix allowed a single experienced worker to produce 4,000 to 5,000 individual types a day,<ref>''Scientific American'' "Supplement" Volume 86 July 13, 1918 page 26, HATHI Trust Digital Library</ref><ref>Legros, Lucien Alphonse; Grant, John Cameron (1916) ''Typographical Printing-surfaces: The Technology and Mechanism of Their Production''. Longmans, Green, and Co. p. 301</ref> while Wang Chen had artisans working two years to make 60,000 wooden types.<ref>Childressm, Diana (2009) ''Johannes Gutenberg and the Printing Press''. Twenty-First Century Books, Minneapolis, p. 49</ref>