Later Printing

The techniques used for printed barely altered for the next three hundred years, and the processes used to make books in 1700 would have been familiar to Gutenberg and William Caxton (the first printer to operate in the British Isles), who both worked in the 15th century.

The innovations in the book which happened after the time of Gutenberg were all improvements in design rather than in the technologies used to produce books. For example, during the 16th century French and Italian printers developed the concept of printing using different sizes to indicate important parts of a text.

Printers also introduced of elements of design to help the reader find information within a book – many of which we now take for granted – such as page numbers, title-pages, indexes and chapter headings.