Print:
Means of graphic communications. Reproduction of quantities of images mostly on paper which can be seen or perceived visually.

Transformation:
Printing has almost completely been transformed from an art to a science with today’s digital technology.

Evolution:
2600 BC - ink was used by Egyptians and Chinese, made of soot mixed with animal glue or vegetable oils.
1500 BC – clay disc. Evidence of first movable type print was found in 1908 by Italian archeologist on the island of Crete.
105 AD – China invention of paper
400 AD – China perfected an ink for block printing using lampblack
1041 – Chinese scribe, Pi-Sheng – developed hardened clay type characters
11th Century – Type cast from metal used in Korea and China
1200 AD – paper made in Spain
mid 1200’s  - type characters cast in bronze
1397 AD – oldest text known printed from bronze cast type characters in Korea
1440 – Johannes Gutenberg introduced the  Western world to the letterpress which combined movable cast type, ink, paper, and press to produce printing that changed the world in the middle of the last millennium
1460 – Albrecht Pfister in Germany created earliest known book using relief woodcut block printing
1476 – William Caxton established a press in Westminster, England, producing The Canterbury Tales and Fables of Aesop
1476 – engraved copper intaglio plates first used in France and Italy
1494 – first paper mill in England
1535 – first printing press in New World was built in Mexico
1570-1770 – copperplate engravings used for illustrations in books
1585 - predecessor of modern Oxford University Press was established. Longest running period of any printing establishment in history
1638 – first printing press in British Colonies called Stephen Daye Press was founded in Massachusetts. Press was moved from Cambridge to Harvard after owner’s death. It became the Harvard University Press, the longest running press in the United States.
1690 – first mill to commercially manufacture paper in Philadelphia owned by William Rittenhouse
1742 – first ink factory established in America
1763-1800’s – printing followed migration to the West
1700’s – Two patriotic printers were Benjamin Franklin and Isaiah Thomas
1798 – Alois Senefelder of Munich discovered lithography ( “writing on stone”)
1798 – papermaking machine using wire mesh screen invented by Frenchman, Louis Robert. His machine was financed and developed by an English family, the Fourdriniers, whom the machine was later named after
1822 – Dr. William Church designed first type setting machine
1850 – first steam press for lithography
1855 – Poitevin invented photolithography
1871 – photoengraving in letterpress printing
1875 – first use of offset principle in lithography for metal decorating
1880 – photoengraved prints replacing woodcuts in illustrations
1886 – Ottmar Mergenthaler invented the Linotype – cast slugs (one-piece fully spaced lines)
1887 – Tolbert Lanston invented Monotype – cast individual pieces of type in justified lines
1893 – first color process work successfully printed
1906 – first offset rotary press invented by Ira A. Rubel in New Jersey
mid 1930’s – heat set inks were introduced for letterpress magazine printing in United States
1949 – phototypesetting introduced by the Fotosetter
1950 -  PDI Electronic Scanner introduced to perform color separations
1970 – electronic typesetting by Video Display Terminal (VDT) and computers, Electronic Dot Generation  (EDG) introduced
1970 – ink-jet printers introduced
1970’s – UV and Electronic Beam (EB) curing vehicles for inks and coatings were introduced
1975 – digital printing using laser plate-making
1978 – electrophotographic (EP) laser printers
1979 – Color Electronic Prepress Systems (CEPS) automated the assembly of color pages
1985 – plain paper digital typesetter and film imagesetter replaced mechanical typesetting
Raster Image Processor (RIP) fostered the development of device-independent prepress systems known as Desktop Publishing which displaced the device dependent CEPS
1990 – color electronic laser printers
1993 – EP color printing presses

PRESENT:
Water-based inks, soybean inks, special inks for waterless printing, single fluid and emulsion type inks are most recent developments in inks

Photography has almost been completely replaced by digital imaging systems. Computer-to-Plate and Computer-to-Press have almost eliminated film.

Digital cameras decrease the use of scanners

Prepress has become device independent desktop publishing

Color proofing has shifted from analog (film based) to digital proofing.

Offset press speeds of 3,000 feet/minute have been reached

Paper is transported to the press and signatures from the press to the bindery by intelligent robots

Print and distribute has changed to distribute digital files and print on location.

FUTURE:
Wse of portable document formats (PDF) to move a digital file to an output service will help problem solve the PostScript errors and reduce the need for preflighting of digital files.

Interactive remote digital color proofing, using FM screening and either thermal or ink-jet imaging systems will simplify digital workflows and speed conversation to “computer to” systems for conventional printing

Lithography will continue to be the dominant printing process well into the 21st Century.

By 2010, 80% of printed products in the US will be produced by conventional printing processes. 20% by short-run, on-demand, variable information and other specialty printing products will be produced by digital printers. There will be 10,000 fewer printers in the US than in the year 2000. Consolidations have mushroomed in the past several years and will continue.

Printing is sure to change more in the next 20 years than in the last 550 years since Gutenberg’s invention.