Writing and Printing

Global spread of the printing press

Following the invention of the printing press in the German city of Mainz by Johannes Gutenberg c. 1439, Western printing technology spread across the world, and was adopted worldwide by the end of the 19th century. The technology, which mechanized the process of printing with moveable type, displaced the manuscript and block printing. In the Western world, the operation of a press became synonymous with the enterprise of publishing and lent its name to a new branch of media, the "press" (see List of the oldest newspapers).

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See also

• ▸Bengali alphabet
• ▸Kinnor
• ▸Greeks

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