How Were Books Created Before The Digital Age?

The written word, is widely known as one of the greatest creations ever invented by mankind. Through written word, books give us the ability to pass along information, linking generation to generation, with very useful knowledge. This knowledge allows cultures from one region of the world, to connect to another region of the world, with as little as a packaged collection of information – A book.

Many cultures throughout time have played a vital role in the passing on of knowledge through written word, with each generation adding a piece to the puzzle, bringing us to where we are today. In today’s internet world, books are created digitally for an easily accessible creation process, but this wasn’t always so.

The history of book creation is a long, “fascinating,” one – One that spans across thousands of years. As these time has gone on, many changing have been made to get us to the digital book making process that we are in today; with many different characters and typewriter fonts, in many different languages available (With some of them available as typewriter fonts download). So today, we’re going to go explain how were books created before the digital age.

Ancient History Of Book Creation

The recorded history of the creation of books, begins with the ancient Egyptians. The ancient Egyptians first begin writing on tablets and walls, and later in their ancient history, begin writing on on a material called “papyrus,” which is a paper-like material. The papyrus was made into long pages (scrolls), which a lot of ancient Egyptian information was written on.

Book binding begin a few centuries before 1 A.D. in India. These ancient Indian cultures started to put together their religious scrolls and bind the books together – With first 100’s, then 1000’s of books created. This feature of the Indian culture became very popular, and began to spread throughout the world.

For book printing, it would be another 1,000 years before the first book would be created. The first printed book was created in Asia around 850 A.D., by the Diamond Sutra. It was created from 7 separate strips of paper, which, during this period of the Tang Dynasty, was pasted together. It is a religious text, dedicated to the teachings of Gautama Buddha, better known as “The Buddha.”

It would be around, another 600 years, in 1455, when the book created through a movable printing type machine – A printing press – would be created, by one Johann Gutenberg. The book, is known today as, “The Gutenberg Bible.” It is a religious text that was created in Mainz, Germany, and was printed in Latin.

Time Periods of Printed Book Creations

There are 5 distinct, well known, periods of printed book creations. There is the first well known period, of printed book creations, which took place during the 1400’s, when The Gutenberg Bible was created by the “Printing Press.” There is the second well known period of printed book creations, which took place in the mid 1800’s, around 1850 (1843 to be exact) where books begin to be created by the “Rotary Press.”

The third distinct period of printed book creations came just a few decades later, in 1875. This third period of printed book creations, is where books begin to be created by a process known as “Offset Printing.” The next distinct, well known, period of printed book creations, would take place a little over 100 years later, in 1986.

During this year a process of printed book creations was invented where books would be created by “Solid Ink Printing.” The period in which we are in today, is known as the age of “Digital Printing.” Digital printing was created in 1993, by “Benny Landa.” He invented the E-Press 1000, which made printing books a whole lot easier. This machine of his is a digital printing press. It is well known, and agreed on, that this is the world’s first digital, color, printing press.

Today, digital book creations have made the process of book creating for inspiring authors, a thing of ease. An author to be, can write a manuscript on their computer, and then have it printed into a book, and available for sale, within 72 hours of finishing it. This is the true beauty of how the digital printing age has revolutionized the process of book creation.

Conclusion

The history of books created before digital printing, has been a long and arduous one, but also a fascinating one. It has been not just centuries, but “millennium.” For thousands of years, many different cultures from around the world, from the ancient Egyptians, to the ancient Indians, to the ancient Asians (in the time during the Tang dynasty), have all played a vital role in the production of book creations before digital printing took its place in the fascinating history of book producing inventions.