Editing Manuscript (section)

==History==
[[File:MS Indic 37, Isa upanisad. Wellcome L0027330.jpg|thumb|right|The Isha [[Upanishad]] manuscript]]
[[File:Gharib al-Hadith-page0019.jpg|thumb|right|Gharib al-Hadith, by [[Abu Ubaid al-Qasim bin Salam|Abu 'Ubaid al-Qasim ibn Sallam al-Harawi]] (d. 837 AD). The oldest known dated Arabic manuscript on paper in [[Leiden University Library]], dated 319 [[Hijri year|AH]] (931 AD)]]
[[File:Sargis Pitsak.jpg|thumb|A 14th-century [[Armenian manuscript]], with painting by [[Sargis Pitsak]]. The first page of the [[Gospel of Mark]]. Cod. 2627, fol. 436 r. ([[Matenadaran]])]]
Before the inventions of printing, in China by [[Woodblock printing|woodblock]] and in Europe by [[movable type]] in a [[printing press]], all written documents had to be both produced and reproduced by hand. In the west, manuscripts were produced in form of scrolls (''volumen'' in Latin) or books (''codex'', plural ''codices''). Manuscripts were produced on [[vellum]] and other parchment, on [[papyrus]], and on paper.

In [[Indian Subcontinent]] and [[Southeast Asia]], [[palm leaf manuscript]]s, with a distinctive long rectangular shape, were used dating back to the 5th century BCE<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.cedar.buffalo.edu/~zshi/Papers/kbcs04_261.pdf |title=Digital Enhancement of Palm Leaf Manuscript Images using Normalization Techniques
|author1=Zhixin Shi| author2=Srirangaraj Setlur |author3=Venu Govindaraju |access-date=2009-06-23 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100616064125/http://www.cedar.buffalo.edu/~zshi/Papers/kbcs04_261.pdf |archive-date=2010-06-16 |location=Amherst, US|publisher=SUNY at Buffalo}}</ref> or earlier, and in some cases continued to be used until the 19th century. In China, [[bamboo and wooden slips]] were used prior to the [[History of paper|introduction of paper]]. In Russia, [[birch bark document]]s as old as from the 11th century have survived.

[[Paper]] spread from China via the Islamic world to Europe by the 14th century, and by the late 15th century had largely replaced parchment for many purposes there. When Greek or Latin works were published, numerous professional copies were sometimes made simultaneously by scribes in a [[scriptorium]], each making a single copy from an original that was declaimed aloud.

The oldest written manuscripts have been preserved by the perfect dryness of their Middle Eastern resting places, whether placed within [[sarcophagus|sarcophagi]] in Egyptian tombs, or reused as [[mummy]]-wrappings, discarded in the [[midden]]s of [[Oxyrhynchus]] or secreted for safe-keeping in jars and buried ([[Nag Hammadi library]]) or stored in dry caves ([[Dead Sea scrolls]]). Volcanic ash preserved some of the Roman library of the [[Villa of the Papyri]] in [[Herculaneum]]. Manuscripts in [[Tocharian languages]], written on palm leaves, survived in desert burials in the [[Tarim Basin]] of Central Asia.

Ironically, the manuscripts that were being most carefully preserved in the libraries of [[Classical antiquity|antiquity]] are virtually all lost. Papyrus has a life of at most a century or two in relatively humid Italian or Greek conditions; only those works copied onto parchment, usually after the general conversion to Christianity, have survived, and by no means all of those.

Originally, all books were in manuscript form. In China, and later other parts of East Asia, [[woodblock printing]] was used for books from about the 7th century. The earliest dated example is the [[Diamond Sutra]] of 868. In the Islamic world and the West, all books were in manuscript until the introduction of movable type printing in about 1450.{{clarify|date=May 2019|reason=Not clear whether this means movable type invention in 1040 AD or printing press in 1450 AD}} Manuscript copying of books continued for a least a century, as printing remained expensive. Private or government documents remained hand-written until the invention of the typewriter in the late 19th century. Because of the likelihood of errors being introduced each time a manuscript was copied, the [[Stemmatics|filiation]] of different versions of the same text is a fundamental part of the study and criticism of all texts that have been transmitted in manuscript.

In [[Southeast Asia]], in the first millennium, documents of sufficiently great importance were inscribed on soft metallic sheets such as [[intaglio printing|copperplate]], softened by refiner's fire and inscribed with a metal stylus. In the [[Philippines]], for example, as early as 900 AD, specimen documents were not inscribed by stylus, but were punched much like the style of today's [[dot-matrix printer]]s.{{Citation needed|date=August 2020|reason=Dubious. Perhaps a [[Braille embosser]]?}} This type of document was rare compared to the usual leaves and bamboo staves that were inscribed. However, neither the leaves nor paper were as durable as the metal document in the hot, humid climate. In [[Myanmar|Burma]], the kammavaca, Buddhist manuscripts, were inscribed on brass, copper or ivory sheets, and even on discarded monk robes folded and lacquered. In [[Italy]] some important [[Etruria|Etruscan]] texts were similarly inscribed on thin gold plates: similar sheets have been discovered in [[Bulgaria]]. Technically, these are all inscriptions rather than manuscripts.

In the Western world, from the [[Classical antiquity|classical period]] through the early centuries of the [[Christian era]], manuscripts were written without spaces between the words ([[scriptio continua]]), which makes them especially hard for the untrained to read. Extant copies of these early manuscripts written in [[Greek language|Greek]] or [[Latin]] and usually dating from the 4th century to the 8th century, are classified according to their use of either all [[majuscule|upper case]] or all [[lower case|lower case letters]]. [[Hebrew language|Hebrew]] manuscripts, such as the [[Dead Sea scrolls]] make no such differentiation. Manuscripts using all upper case letters are called [[majuscule]], those using all lower case are called [[lower case|minuscule]]. Usually, the majuscule scripts such as [[uncial]] are written with much more care. The scribe lifted his pen between each stroke, producing an unmistakable effect of regularity and formality. On the other hand, while minuscule scripts can be written with pen-lift, they may also be [[cursive]], that is, use little or no pen-lift.