Printing Press Coloring Page

Johannes Gutenberg was a goldsmith in Mainz, Germany, and around 1440 he built a printing press that used movable metal letters. Each letter was a little block that could be lined up into words, inked, pressed onto paper and then used again for the next page. He based the press on the kind of screw press used for making wine.

Before that every book was copied out by hand, and a single one could take months. Gutenberg's famous Bible was printed in about 1455, and within 50 years presses were running in hundreds of towns. Books got cheaper and more people learned to read, so ideas could spread much faster.