Editing Printing (section)

===Woodblock printing===
{{Main|Woodblock printing}}
[[Woodblock printing]] is a technique for printing text, images or patterns that was used widely throughout East Asia. It originated in China in antiquity as a method of printing on [[textiles]] and later on paper.<ref name="Suarez & Woudhuysen" /> 

====In East Asia====
[[File:Jingangjing.jpg|thumb|left|The intricate frontispiece of the [[Diamond Sutra]] from [[Tang dynasty]] China, AD 868 ([[British Library]]), discovered at the [[Mogao Caves#The Library Cave|Library Cave of Mogao Caves]] in [[Dunhuang]], but probably printed in [[Sichuan]].<ref>{{cite web |url=http://idp.bl.uk/4DCGI/education/silk_road/pages/dun262a.html |title=Cat 262: Printed dated copy of the ''Diamond Sutra'' |author=<!--Not stated--> |date=<!--Not stated--> |website=[[International Dunhuang Project|idp.bl.uk]] |access-date=8 December 2022 |archive-date=December 8, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221208072014/http://idp.bl.uk/4DCGI/education/silk_road/pages/dun262a.html |url-status=live }}</ref>]]
{{Main|History of printing in East Asia}}

The earliest examples of ink-squeeze rubbings and potential stone printing blocks appear in the mid-sixth century in China. A type of printing called mechanical [[woodblock printing]] on paper started during the 7th century in the [[Tang dynasty]],<ref name="Suarez & Woudhuysen" />{{sfn|Tsien|1985|p=8}} and subsequently spread throughout East Asia. [[Nara period|Nara Japan]] printed the [[Hyakumantō Darani]] en masse around 770, and distributed them to temples throughout Japan. In [[Korea]], an example of woodblock printing from the eighth century was discovered in 1966. A copy of the [[Buddhist]] Dharani Sutra called the [[Pure Light Dharani Sutra]] ({{korean|hangul=무구정광대다라니경|hanja=無垢淨光大陀羅尼經|rr=Mugu jeonggwang dae darani-gyeong}}), discovered in [[Gyeongju]], in a [[Silla]] dynasty pagoda that was repaired in 751,<ref name="Tsien 1985 149,150">{{harvnb|Tsien|1985|pp=149,150}}</ref> was undated but must have been created sometime before the reconstruction of the [[Seokgatap|Shakyamuni Pagoda]] of [[Bulguk Temple]], Kyongju Province in  751.<ref name="Pratt">{{cite book |last=Pratt |first=Keith |title=Everlasting Flower: A History of Korea |date=August 15, 2007 |publisher=Reaktion Books |isbn=978-1861893352 |page=74}}</ref><ref>[http://eng.buddhapia.com/_Service/_ContentView/ETC_CONTENT_2.ASP?PK=0000593746&danrak_no=&clss_cd=&top_menu_cd=0000000808 Early Printing in Korea. Korea Cultural Center] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090208232218/http://eng.buddhapia.com/_Service/_ContentView/ETC_CONTENT_2.ASP?PK=0000593746&danrak_no=&clss_cd=&top_menu_cd=0000000808|date=2009-02-08}}</ref><ref>[http://www.rightreading.com/printing/gutenberg.asia/gutenberg-asia-6-china-blockbook.htm Gutenberg and the Koreans: Asian Woodblock Books. Rightreading.com]</ref><ref>[http://www.rightreading.com/printing/gutenberg.asia/gutenberg-asia-9-korea.htm Gutenberg and the Koreans: Cast-Type Printing in Korea's Goryeo Dynasty (918–1392). Rightreading.com]</ref><ref>[http://countrystudies.us/north-korea/7.htm North Korea – Silla. Country Studies]</ref> The document is estimated to have been created no later than 704.<ref name="Tsien 1985 149,150" />

By the ninth century, printing on paper had taken off, and the first completely surviving<!--i.e., not separated--> printed book is the [[Diamond Sutra]] ([[British Library]]) of 868, uncovered from [[Dunhuang]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/sacredtexts/diamondsutra.html |title=Oneline Gallery: Sacred Texts |publisher=British Library |access-date=March 10, 2012 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131110093610/http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/sacredtexts/diamondsutra.html |archive-date=November 10, 2013 }}</ref> By the tenth century, 400,000 copies of some sutras and pictures were printed, and the Confucian classics were in print. A skilled printer could print up to 2,000 double-page sheets per day.<ref name=Needham>
{{cite book |last1=Tsuen-Hsuin |first1=Tsien |author-link1=Tsien Tsuen-Hsuin |last2=Needham |first2=Joseph |author-link2=Joseph Needham |title=Paper and Printing |series=Science and Civilisation in China |volume=5 part 1 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |pages=158, 201 |year=1985}}</ref>

Printing spread early to [[Korea]] and Japan, which also used Chinese [[logogram]]s, but the technique was also used in [[Turpan]] and [[Vietnam]] using a number of other scripts. This technique then spread to Persia and Russia.<ref name=Carter>[[Thomas Franklin Carter]], ''The Invention of Printing in China and its Spread Westward'', The Ronald Press, NY 2nd ed. 1955, pp. 176–78</ref> This technique was transmitted to Europe by around 1400 and was used on paper for [[old master print]]s and [[playing card]]s.<ref>{{cite book |last=Mayor |first=A Hyatt |title=Prints and People |publisher=Metropolitan Museum of Art |location=Princeton |volume=5-18 |isbn=978-0-691-00326-9|year=1980 }}</ref>

====In the Middle East====
Block printing, called ''[[tarsh]]'' in [[Arabic language|Arabic]], developed in [[History of Arab Egypt|Arabic Egypt]] during the ninth and tenth centuries, mostly for prayers and [[amulet]]s. There is some evidence to suggest that these print blocks were made from non-wood materials, possibly [[tin]], lead, or clay. The techniques employed are uncertain. Block printing later went out of use during the [[Timurid Renaissance]].<ref>Richard W. Bulliet (1987), "[http://www.ghazali.org/articles/jaos107-3-1987-rwb.pdf Medieval Arabic Tarsh: A Forgotten Chapter in the History of Printing] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170921204857/http://www.ghazali.org/articles/jaos107-3-1987-rwb.pdf |date=September 21, 2017 }}". ''Journal of the American Oriental Society'' '''107''' (3), pp. 427–38.</ref> The printing technique in Egypt was embraced by reproducing texts on paper strips and supplying them in different copies to meet the demand.<ref>See Geoffrey Roper, Muslim Printing Before Gutenberg and the references cited therein.</ref><ref name=bloom8>{{cite book |first=Jonathan |last=Bloom |year=2001 |title=Paper Before Print: The History and Impact of Paper in the Islamic World |url=https://archive.org/details/paperbeforeprint00bloo |url-access=limited |location=New Haven |publisher=Yale University Press |isbn=0-300-08955-4 |pages= [https://archive.org/details/paperbeforeprint00bloo/page/n23 8]–10, 42–45}}</ref>

====In Europe====
[[File:Saint Christopher 001.jpg|thumb|right|upright=0.9|The earliest known [[woodcut]], 1423, [[Buxheim]], with hand-colouring]]
Block printing first came to Europe as a method for printing on cloth, where it was common by 1300. Images printed on cloth for religious purposes could be quite large and elaborate. When paper became relatively easily available, around 1400, the technique transferred very quickly to small [[woodcut]] religious images and [[playing card]]s printed on paper. These [[old master print|prints]] were produced in very large numbers from about 1425 onward.<!-- This may be supported by the reference – An Introduction to a History of Woodcut, Arthur M. Hind, Houghton Mifflin Co. 1935 (in US), reprinted Dover Publications, 1963 {{ISBN|0-486-20952-0}} (recovered from a previous version of this article) -->

Around the mid-fifteenth-century, ''block-books'', woodcut books with both text and images, usually carved in the same block, emerged as a cheaper alternative to manuscripts and books printed with [[movable type]]. These were all short, heavily illustrated works, the bestsellers of the day, repeated in many different block-book versions: the {{lang|la|[[Ars moriendi]]}} and the [[Biblia pauperum]] were the most common. There is still some controversy among scholars as to whether their introduction preceded or, in the majority view, followed the introduction of movable type, with the estimated range of dates being between about 1440 and 1460.<ref>{{cite book |title=Master E S, five hundredth anniversary exhibition, September fifth through October third, Philadelphia Museum of Art |first=Alan |last=Shestack |publisher=Philadelphia Museum of Art |date=1967 |oclc=1976512}}</ref>