Press start

If you're reading this — and you are — thank a printing press.

Even if you're browsing online and think an inkless/paperless experience has no ties, think again.

In fact, a mid-1400s press and its ensuing print culture have helped shape much of our lives.

Before passing this off as a rallying cry for what naysayers label as sagging print industries, consider how Johannes Gutenberg's creation of a printing press using moveable metal type served as a catalyst for revolutions in industry, education, science, religion, language, nationalism and more.

All from a device transferring lettering and images onto paper by pressurized contact with an inked surface.

Using paper and wooden and clay blocks, printing in the Far East dated centuries earlier; the first known "book" — China's "Diamond Sutra" — was printed in 868.

In Western Europe before Gutenberg, most publications were handwritten religious manuscripts, laboriously penned on parchment or vellum by Roman Catholic monks or other religious orders, written in the church's Latin and collected in monasteries.

What little printing was done — often for decoration or illustration — typically employed engraved blocks, with wood and clay susceptible to weathering and damage.

By 1440, Gutenberg had developed a printing machine with mechanisms modeled after wine and olive presses. The key element: moveable metal type.

Using an alloy of tin, lead and antimony and a series of molds and punches, the German craftsman created single-character type that could be used over and over in composing words, sentences and entire documents.

Not so much an invention as it was a refined aggregation of previous printing technologies, Gutenberg's press also benefitted from Europe's blossoming use of paper and oil-based inks.

After printing religious materials for 10 years, the printing of 200 copies of the two-volume Gutenberg Bible served as a starting point for mass production of books.

Production was arduous and the Bible's cost high — the equivalent of a clerk's wages for three years. But it was a far cry from the 20 years previously required for a monk to transcribe a Bible manuscript.

The exploding print culture quickly overshadowed oral and written cultures, and the 1500s began with print shops in 2,500 European cities and some 20 million books in 35,000 titles and an accompanying increase in literacy and personal libraries.