Printing, compass, gunpowder and papermaking are called four great inventions of ancient china. The invention of printing can be divided into two stages. The first stage is block printing from Sui Dynasty to Tang Dynasty, and the second stage is movable type printing in Song Dynasty. The invention of printing is a symbol of the wisdom of the ancient working people in China, and its contribution to human civilization is immeasurable.

Before the invention of printing, the spread of culture mainly depended on the manual copying of books by readers, which not only wasted time, but also made mistakes easily, which greatly hindered the development of social culture. In the Sui Dynasty, the earliest printing technique-block printing appeared. This printing method is to carve a protruding reverse writing on a piece of wood with a knife, then ink it and print it on paper. Each block can be reused and a large number of books can be printed, which makes it relatively easy to copy and spread books. However, block printing is full-page carving. Every time a new book is printed, it must be re-engraved. Once there is an error in the carving process, it will destroy the re-carving. Therefore, this kind of work is very complicated and slow. During the Northern Song Dynasty, movable type printing was invented on the basis of block printing. This printing method is to carve a single character from wood, clay or metal, and then print it in combination according to the needs of the book content during printing, which greatly improves the printing efficiency.

The invention of printing greatly increased the number of printed books. Since the Five Dynasties, China has formed three carving systems: official carving, workshop carving and private carving, and many famous carving centers, institutions and sculptors have appeared, which have played a great role in the preservation, accumulation, dissemination and exchange of China culture. At the same time, printing has also promoted the development of world civilization. Long before the invention of woodblock printing, woodblock printing in the Tang Dynasty spread to Japan and other eastern neighboring countries. /kloc-In the 5th century, movable type printing spread to Europe, which changed the situation that only monks in Europe could study and receive higher education, and had a far-reaching impact on the emergence and development of European Renaissance, modern western printing, and even the development and spread of the whole world culture. Therefore, printing is also called "the mother of civilization" in the world.