Moveable Type Printig
活字印刷
The block printing technology in our country was probably invented in the seventh century, and reached its climax in the tenth century in the Song Dynasty. With the block printing technology, such procedures as writing samples,carving blocks, spraying the ink and printing were involved in the process of publishing a book, and it was always time-consuming and costly in the use of the material resources and manpower to print a work of great length. The procedures would have to be repeated if other books were to be published; hence our ancestors conducted active explorations and strived for improvements, which led to the eventual invention of the moveable clay-type printing technology by an ordinary man called Bi Sheng during the period of Qingli of the Northern Song Dynasty, as can be proved by the account of the book Dream Pool Essays by Bi Sheng's contemporary,Shen Kuo. From then on, the moveable type printing technology was applied, and it was 400 years earlier than that used in Europe when the German Gutenburg, for the first time, printed the Holy Bible with this very technology.During the period of Dade of the Yuan Dynasty, Wang Zhen learned to use the moveable wood types to print books, of which none has come down to the present day. The oldest moveable-type printed book in existence in China is Yushice in the Yuan Dynasty, which is now collected in the National Library of China. There are, because of the differences of the times and materials, different names for the moveable type printing,such as the moveable clay-type printing, magnetic printing, moveable wood-type plate, moveable copper-type printing, moveable lead-type printing and moveable zinc-type printing. In the years of Hongzhi of the Ming Dynasty, the moveable cop-per-type printing became prevalent in Wuxi, Suzhou, Changshu and Nanjing, Jian-gsu Province, but in the years between Tianqi and Congzhen of the Ming Dynasty when a social and economic decline was pervasive, lapsed into a low ebb due to its great economic cost, the corollary of which was that there were few moveable copper-type printed books handed down to the present day. There are over 100 kinds of books in existence which were printed with the cheap moveable wood types in the Ming Dynasty. In the late Ming Dynasty, the moveable wood-type printing gradually replaced the copper-type printing for the printing of the books.People at the time also learned to use the moveable zinc types to print books; un-fortunately, there was not any book of this kind left to the present day. The moveable wood-type printing was the mainstream in the Qing Dynasty, and a great number of books of this kind have been properly preserved. After the Opium War, the moveable zinc-type printing technology originating in the west was introduced into China. The new printing technology, given its great advantages over the traditional block printing and moveable type printing, replaced them gradually as the major type of printing books, and has been used to the modern times.
我国雕版印刷技术大约发明于公元7世纪，到了10世纪的宋代达到鼎盛。使用这种技术出版一套书籍须经过写样刻版、涂墨印刷等多道工序，如果是要印一部大著作，往往要花费大量的物力、人力和时间。假如要再出版其他书籍，这些工序又得重新来过，因此我们的祖先积极探索，力求改进，终于在北宋庆历年间，平民毕异发明了用胶泥活字印刷技术。此事记载于与毕异同时期的沈括的《梦溪笔谈》一书中，从此活字印刷术开始使用了。它比欧洲最先用活字印《圣经》的德国谷腾堡要早400年。到了元代大德年间，王桢发明了用木活字印书，可惜这些都没有传本，国内现存最早的活字印刷实物是国家图书馆藏元朝的《御试策》。活字版因时代、材料不同而有不同的名称，有“泥活字版”、“磁板”、“木活字版”、“铜活字版”、“铅活字版”、“锡活字版”等等。明代弘治年间，在江苏的无锡、苏州、常熟、南京一带，铜活字印刷开始流行起来。到了天启、崇祯时期，由于社会经济的衰落，铜活字印刷因经济成本太大进入低潮，很少有传本面世了。明代用木活字这种成本价廉的印刷方式印制的书籍现存有100多种，到了明代晚期，木活字逐步取代了铜活字印书。同时在明代还发明了用锡活字印书，可惜无实物传世。木活字是清代活字印刷的主流，且有大量的木活字书籍保存下来。鸦片战争以后，西方的铅活字印刷术传人我国，这种新型的印刷术比传统的雕版印刷和活字印刷有着较大的优势，逐步取代了雕版印刷和活字印刷的地位，成为印刷书籍的最主要的方式，并一直沿用到现代。