Printing

Printing is a process for reproducing text and image, typically with ink on paper using a printing press. It is often carried out as a large-scale industrial process, and is an essential part of publishing and transaction printing.
Woodblock printing is a technique for printing text, images or patterns that was used widely throughout East Asia. It originated in China in antiquity as a method of printing on textiles and later on paper. As a method of printing on cloth, the earliest surviving examples from China date to before 220, and from Egypt to the 4th century.
By 593 A.D., the first printing press was invented in China, and the first printed newspaper, Kaiyuan Za Bao, was available in Beijing in 713 A.D. It was a woodblock printing. And the Tianemmen scrolls, the earliest known complete woodblock printed book with illustrations, was printed in China in 868 A.D.; it did not supersede the use of block printing.
Block printing first came to Christian Europe as a method for printing on cloth, where it was common by 1300. Images printed on cloth for religious purposes could be quite large and elaborate, and when paper became relatively easily available, around 1400, the medium transferred very quickly to small woodcut religious images and playing cards printed on paper. These prints were produced in very large numbers from about 1425 onwards.