雙語科技百科(手工業) 第68期:活字印刷
Moveable Type Printig
The block printing technology in our country was probably invented in the seventh century, and reached its climax in the tenth century in the Song Dynasty. With the block printing technology, such procedures as writing samples,carving blocks, spraying the ink and printing were involved in the process of publishing a book, and it was always time-consuming and costly in the use of the material resources and manpower to print a work of great length. The procedures would have to be repeated if other books were to be published; hence our ancestors conducted active explorations and strived for improvements, which led to the eventual invention of the moveable clay-type printing technology by an ordinary man called Bi Sheng during the period of Qingli of the Northern Song Dynasty, as can be proved by the account of the book Dream Pool Essays by Bi Sheng's contemporary,Shen Kuo. From then on, the moveable type printing technology was applied, and it was 400 years earlier than that used in Europe when the German Gutenburg, for the first time, printed the Holy Bible with this very ng the period of Dade of the Yuan Dynasty, Wang Zhen learned to use the moveable wood types to print books, of which none has come down to the present day. The oldest moveable-type printed book in existence in China is Yushice in the Yuan Dynasty, which is now collected in the National Library of China. There are, because of the differences of the times and materials, different names for the moveable type printing,such as the moveable clay-type printing, magnetic printing, moveable wood-type plate, moveable copper-type printing, moveable lead-type printing and moveable zinc-type printing. In the years of Hongzhi of the Ming Dynasty, the moveable cop-per-type printing became prevalent in Wuxi, Suzhou, Changshu and Nanjing, Jian-gsu Province, but in the years between Tianqi and Congzhen of the Ming Dynasty when a social and economic decline was pervasive, lapsed into a low ebb due to its great economic cost, the corollary of which was that there were few moveable copper-type printed books handed down to the present day. There are over 100 kinds of books in existence which were printed with the cheap moveable wood types in the Ming Dynasty. In the late Ming Dynasty, the moveable wood-type printing gradually replaced the copper-type printing for the printing of the le at the time also learned to use the moveable zinc types to print books; un-fortunately, there was not any book of this kind left to the present day. The moveable wood-type printing was the mainstream in the Qing Dynasty, and a great number of books of this kind have been properly preserved. After the Opium War, the moveable zinc-type printing technology originating in the west was introduced into China. The new printing technology, given its great advantages over the traditional block printing and moveable type printing, replaced them gradually as the major type of printing books, and has been used to the modern times.
我國雕版印刷技術大約發明於公元7世紀，到了10世紀的宋代達到鼎盛。使用這種技術出版一套書籍須經過寫樣刻版、塗墨印刷等多道工序，如果是要印一部大著作，往往要花費大量的物力、人力和時間。假如要再出版其他書籍，這些工序又得重新來過，因此我們的祖先積極探索，力求改進，終於在北宋慶曆年間，平民畢異發明了用膠泥活字印刷技術。此事記載於與畢異同時期的沈括的《夢溪筆談》一書中，從此活字印刷術開始使用了。它比歐洲最先用活字印《聖經》的德國谷騰堡要早400年。到了元代大德年間，王楨發明了用木活字印書，可惜這些都沒有傳本，國內現存最早的活字印刷實物是國家圖書館藏元朝的《御試策》。活字版因時代、材料不同而有不同的名稱，有“泥活字版”、“磁板”、“木活字版”、“銅活字版”、“鉛活字版”、“錫活字版”等等。明代弘治年間，在江蘇的無錫、蘇州、常熟、南京一帶，銅活字印刷開始流行起來。到了天啓、崇禎時期，由於社會經濟的衰落，銅活字印刷因經濟成本太大進入低潮，很少有傳本面世了。明代用木活字這種成本價廉的印刷方式印製的書籍現存有100多種，到了明代晚期，木活字逐步取代了銅活字印書。同時在明代還發明瞭用錫活字印書，可惜無實物傳世。木活字是清代活字印刷的主流，且有大量的木活字書籍保存下來。鴉片戰爭以後，西方的鉛活字印刷術傳人我國，這種新型的印刷術比傳統的雕版印刷和活字印刷有着較大的優勢，逐步取代了雕版印刷和活字印刷的地位，成爲印刷書籍的最主要的方式，並一直沿用到現代。
