How the printing press changed books
The short answer
From hand-copied manuscripts to Gutenberg’s reusable metal type: how one invention made books cheaper and spread them across Europe.
0:28History of ideasBeginnerGutenbergprinting pressbooks
Chapters and transcript
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Before print, books were copied by hand
A scribe wrote every page letter by letter, and a single copy could take months.
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Gutenberg’s reusable metal letters
In Mainz, around 1450, Johannes Gutenberg cast individual letters in metal. They were set into lines, printed, then used again.
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One page, printed again and again
A press could print the same page many times. His Bible, finished around 1455, ran to about 180 copies.
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Printing spread across Europe
By 1500, presses were at work in more than 200 European cities. Books became cheaper, and ideas travelled faster than ever.