right|thumb|A case of cast metal type pieces and typeset matter in a [[composing stick]]
Movable type (US English; moveable type in British English) is the system and technology of printing and typography that uses movable components to reproduce the elements of a document (usually individual alphanumeric characters or punctuation marks) usually on the medium of paper.
Overview
The world's first movable type printing technology for paper books was made of porcelain materials and was invented around 1040 AD in China during the Northern Song dynasty by the inventor Bi Sheng (990–1051). The invention was recorded in the Dream Pool Essays by Chinese scholar-official and polymath Shen Kuo (1031–1095 CE). This extant book provides a detailed description of the technical details of Bi Sheng's invention of movable type printing. The first recorded use of (metal) copper movable type in the 12th century is from a legal and financial document of the Jin Dynasty. This printed paper document titled (, ), is a technical specification or report related to the production of paper currency. The document is dated between 1137 and 1162 during the reign of Emperor Hailingwang (), which places it firmly in the mid-12th century. The critical piece of evidence comes from a notation within this document. It states that the method used to print paper money with "" (), which translates to "copper plate with engraved patterns/characters", using individual copper characters arranged on a plate for printing the identifying code of the money to be circulated. Another book in 1193 CE that describes the use of clay movable type is the (, ) by Zhou Bida, a prominent statesman and scholar, who personally documented on the preface of his book, that he used the method of "clay characters" () to print his book. Yutang Zaji is a book, specifically a work of Chinese biji (miscellany notes) literature. Biji books are a genre of Chinese writing that feature an eclectic mix of anecdotes, observations, historical notes, and literary criticism, without a strict organizational structure. The Yutang zaji is part of this tradition. This is the oldest extant book that was printed using movable type. Since it's considered an important primary source for the study of Song Dynasty bureaucratic and cultural history, there are modern printed editions and digital versions of this text. The Yuan dynasty official Wang Zhen used wooden movable type for printing paper money, as evidenced by a preserved 1287 printing plate for a "Yuan Dynasty banknote". The earliest adoption of this practice was in Korea during the Goryeo Dynasty in the 14th century, with the later creation of the Jikji in 1377—a book printed with movable type by Choe Yun-ui during Korea's Goryeo dynasty, using metal (bronze alloys) movable type.
The spread of both movable-type systems was, to some degree, limited to primarily East Asia. The creation of the printing press in Europe may have been influenced by various sporadic reports of movable type technology brought back to Europe by returning business people and missionaries to China.
Around 1450, German goldsmith Johannes Gutenberg invented the metal movable-type printing press, along with innovations in casting the type based on a matrix and hand mould. The small number of alphabetic characters needed for European languages was an important factor. Gutenberg was the first to create his type pieces from an alloy of lead, tin, and antimony—and these materials remained standard for 550 years.
For alphabetic scripts, movable-type page setting was quicker than woodblock printing. The metal type pieces were more durable and the lettering was more uniform, leading to typography and fonts. The high quality and relatively low price of the Gutenberg Bible (1455) established the superiority of movable type in Europe and the use of printing presses spread rapidly. The printing press may be regarded as one of the key factors fostering the Renaissance and, due to its effectiveness, its use spread around the globe.
The 19th-century invention of hot metal typesetting and its successors caused movable type to decline in the 20th century.
Precursors to movable type
thumb|The [[King of Na gold seal, bestowed by Emperor Guangwu of Han to Wana (Yayoi Japan) in 57 AD]]
thumb|The intricate frontispiece of the [[Diamond Sutra from Tang dynasty China, the oldest extant woodblock-printed book, 868 AD (British Museum)]]
Letter punch and coins
The technique of imprinting multiple copies of symbols or glyphs with a master type punch made of hard metal first developed around 3000 BC in ancient Sumer. These metal punch types can be seen as precursors of the letter punches adapted in later millennia to printing with movable metal type. Cylinder seals were used in Mesopotamia to create an impression on a surface by rolling the seal on wet clay.
Seals and stamps
Seals and stamps may have been precursors to movable type. The uneven spacing of the impressions on brick stamps found in the Mesopotamian cities of Uruk and Larsa, dating from the 2nd millennium BC, has been conjectured by some archaeologists as evidence that the stamps were made using movable type. The enigmatic Minoan Phaistos Disc of –1600 BC has been considered by one scholar as an early example of a body of text being reproduced with reusable characters: it may have been produced by pressing pre-formed hieroglyphic "seals" into the soft clay. A few authors even view the disc as technically meeting all definitional criteria to represent an early incidence of movable-type printing. In the West the practice of sealing documents with an impressed personal or official insignia, typically from a worn signet ring, became established under the Roman Empire, and continued through the Byzantine and Holy Roman empires, into the 19th century, when a wet signature became customary.
Seals in China have been used since at least the Shang dynasty (2nd millennium BCE). In the Western Zhou, sets of seal stamps were encased in blocks of type and used on clay moulds for casting bronzes. By the end of the 3rd century BCE, seals were also used for printing on pottery. In the Northern dynasties textual sources contain references to wooden seals with up to 120 characters. The seals had a religious element to them. Daoists used seals as healing devices by impressing therapeutic characters onto the flesh of sick people. They were also used to stamp food, creating a talismanic character to ward off disease. The first evidence of these practices appeared under a Buddhist context in the mid 5th century CE. Centuries later, seals were used to create hundreds of Buddha images. According to Tsien Tsuen-hsuin, Chinese seals had greater potential to turn into movable type due to their square, rectangular, and flat shape suited to a printing surface, whereas seals in the west were cylindrical or scabaroid, round or oval, and mostly used for pictures rather than writing.
Woodblock printing
Bones, shells, bamboo slips, metal tablets, stone tablets, silk, as well as other materials were previously used for writing. However, following the invention of paper during the Chinese Han dynasty, writing materials became more portable and economical. Yet, copying books by hand was still labour-consuming. Not until the Xiping Era (172–178 AD), towards the end of the Eastern Han dynasty, did sealing print and monotype appear. These were used to print designs on fabrics and to print texts.
By about the 8th century during the Tang dynasty, woodblock printing was invented and worked as follows. First, the neat hand-copied script was stuck on a relatively thick and smooth board, with the front of the paper sticking to the board, the paper being so thin it was transparent, the characters showing in reverse distinctly so that every stroke could be easily recognized. Then, carvers cut away the parts of the board that were not part of the character, so that the characters were cut in relief, completely differently from those cut intaglio. When printing, the bulging characters would have some ink spread on them and be covered by paper. With workers' hands moving on the back of paper gently, characters would be printed on the paper. By the Song dynasty, woodblock printing came to its heyday. Although woodblock printing played an influential role in spreading culture, there were some significant drawbacks. Carving the printing plate required considerable time, labour, and materials. It also was not convenient to store these plates and was difficult to correct mistakes.
History
Ceramic movable type
thumb|Chinese characters are arranged in the shape of buddha on a page remain of [[Amitayurdhyana Sutra printed in 1103 (Northern Song dynasty) by ceramic movable type. Found in Baixiang Pagoda, Wenzhou.]]
Bi Sheng () (990–1051) developed the first known movable-type system for printing in China around 1040 AD during the Northern Song dynasty, using ceramic materials. As described by the Chinese scholar Shen Kuo (沈括) (1031–1095):
After his death, ceramic movable type may have spread to the Tangut kingdom of Western Xia, where a Buddhist text known as the Vimalakirti Nirdesa Sutra was found in modern Wuwei, Gansu, dating to the reign of Emperor Renzong of Western Xia (r. 1125-1193). The text features traits that have been identified as hallmarks of ceramic movable type such as the hollowness of the character strokes and deformed and broken strokes. The ceramic movable-type also passed onto Bi Sheng's descendants. The next mention of movable type occurred in 1193 when a Southern Song chief counselor, Zhou Bida (), attributed the movable-type method of printing to Shen Kuo. However Shen Kuo did not invent the movable type but credited it to Bi Sheng in his Dream Pool Essays. Zhou used ceramic type to print the Yutang Zaji (Notes of the Jade Hall) in 1193. Further evidence of the spread of movable type appears in the Binglü Xiansheng Wenji (Collected Works of Master Palm) by Deng Su (1091-1132), which references the use of metal frames in movable type printing to print poems. The ceramic movable type was mentioned by Kublai Khan's councilor Yao Shu (1203–1280), who convinced his pupil Yang Gu to print language primers using this method.
The claim that Bi Sheng's ceramic types were "fragile" and "not practical for large-scale printing" and "short lived" were refuted by later experiments. Bao Shicheng (1775–1885) wrote that fired clay moveable type was "as hard and tough as horn"; experiments show that clay type, after being fired in a kiln, becomes hard and difficult to break, such that it remains intact after being dropped from a height of two metres onto a marble floor. The length of ceramic movable types in China was 1 to 2 centimetres, not 2 mm, thus hard as horn. But similar to metal type, ceramic type did not hold the water-based Chinese calligraphic ink well, and had an added disadvantage of uneven matching of the type which could sometimes result from the uneven changes in size of the type during the firing process.
Ceramic movable type was used as late as 1844 in China from the Song dynasty through to the Qing dynasty.
Wooden movable type
thumb|A revolving typecase for wooden type in China, from [[Wang Zhen (official)|Wang Zhen's book published in 1313]]
Bi Sheng (990–1051) of the Song dynasty also pioneered the use of wooden movable type around 1040 AD, as described by the Chinese scholar Shen Kuo (1031–1095). However, this technology was abandoned in favour of clay movable types due to the presence of wood grains and the unevenness of the wooden type after being soaked in ink.
A number of books printed in Tangut script during the Western Xia (1038–1227) period are known, of which the Auspicious Tantra of All-Reaching Union, which was discovered in the ruins of Baisigou Square Pagoda in 1991 is believed to have been printed sometime during the reign of Emperor Renzong of Western Xia (1139–1193). It is considered by many Chinese experts to be the earliest extant example of a book printed using wooden movable type.
In 1298, Wang Zhen (), a Yuan dynasty governmental official of Jingde County, Anhui Province, China, re-invented a method of making movable wooden types. He made more than 30,000 wooden movable types and printed 100 copies of Records of Jingde County (), a book of more than 60,000 Chinese characters. Soon afterwards, he summarized his invention in his book A method of making moveable wooden types for printing books. Although the wooden type was more durable under the mechanical rigors of handling, repeated printing wore down the character faces, and the types could only be replaced by carving new pieces. This system was later enhanced by pressing wooden blocks into sand and casting metal types from the depression in copper, bronze, iron or tin. This new method overcame many of the shortcomings of woodblock printing. Rather than manually carving an individual block to print a single page, movable type printing allowed for the quick assembly of a page of text. Furthermore, these new, more compact type fonts could be reused and stored. with the country producing large-scale bronze-plate-printed paper money and formal official documents issued by the Jin (1115–1234) and Southern Song (1127–1279) dynasties with embedded bronze metal types for anti-counterfeit markers. Such paper-money printing might date back to the 11th-century jiaozi of Northern Song (960–1127).
The 1298 book Zao Huozi Yinshufa () by the Yuan dynasty (1271–1368) official Wang Zhen mentions tin movable type, used probably since the Southern Song dynasty (1127–1279), but this was largely experimental. It was unsatisfactory due to its incompatibility with the inking process.
During the Mongol Empire (1206–1405), printing using movable type spread to the Uyghurs of Central Asia. They used movable type for their script with some Chinese words printed between the pages—strong evidence that the books were printed in China.
During the Ming dynasty (1368–1644), Hua Sui in 1490 used bronze type in printing books.
While these books have not survived, Jikji, printed in Korea in 1377, is believed to be the world's oldest metallic movable type-printed book.
However, 2022 research suggests that a copy of the Song of Enlightenment with Commentaries by Buddhist Monk Nammyeong Cheon, printed 138 years before Jikji in 1239, may have been printed in metal type. The Asian Reading Room of the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., displays examples of this metal type. Commenting on the invention of metallic types by Koreans, French scholar Henri-Jean Martin described this as "[extremely similar] to Gutenberg's". However, Korean movable metal type printing differed from European printing in the materials used for the type, punch, matrix, mould and in method of making an impression.
The techniques for bronze casting, used at the time for making coins (as well as bells and statues) were adapted to making metal type. The Joseon dynasty scholar Seong Hyeon (성현, 成俔, 1439–1504) records the following description of the Korean font-casting process: