A printing press is a device for evenly printing ink onto a print medium (substrate) such as paper or cloth. The device applies pressure to a print medium that rests on an inked surface made of movable type, thereby transferring the ink. Typically used for texts, the invention and spread of the printing press are widely regarded as among the most influential events in human history, revolutionizing the way people conceive and describe the world they live in, and ushering in the period of modernity.
The world's first movable type printing was invented and developed in China by the Han Chinese printer Bi Sheng between the years 1041 and 1048. His contemporary Shen Kuo wrote extensively about the movable type printing technology developed by Bi Sheng in his scientific book, the Dream Pool Essays, which was published in 1088. This technology was transmitted to Korea during the Goryeo Dynasty, where the Korean inventors subsequently made many new technological improvements and innovations upon the original technology and in 1234 created the world's first metal movable-type printing technology for printing paper books 216 years before Gutenberg's printing press. This led to the printing of a Korean book, using the ancient Chinese writing system, known in Korean as the Jikji in 1377; it is the oldest extant movable metal printed book. This form of metal movable type technology has been described by the French scholar Henri-Jean Martin as similar to Gutenberg's.
