Ink | Writing & Printing History, Uses & Types (2024)

FAQs

Ink | Writing & Printing History, Uses & Types? ›

ink, fluid or paste of various colours, but usually black or dark blue, used for writing and printing. It is composed of a pigment or dye dissolved or dispersed in a liquid called the vehicle. Writing inks date from about 2500 bc and were used in ancient Egypt and China.

The first inks for writing go as far back as the 23rd Century BC in China. Dyes were made from organic matter such as plants and animals, which were ground with graphite to produce ink – subsequently applied to flat surfaces using paintbrushes.

In general, ink in an ink cartridge is used for printing documents, photographs and other such materials. Some ink, however, must be used to maintain the health of the print head; some ink is residual and some ink evaporates.

However, the first real recorded use of printing ink was found in China, roughly 23rd Century B.C. The Chinese made dyes using plants and animals that could be ground up into graphite which would then be applied to surfaces using paintbrushes.

Ink is typically colored, but the very first inks used charcoal or soot from the fire as the main pigment, hence why most of the early written works found were written in black ink.

Black ink was known as masi in India: a mixture of different ashes, water and animal glue. It was only in the mid-17th century, when Europe began importing ink from India, that it became known as Indian ink.

When Johannes Gutenberg invented printing with movable type in Germany in about 1440, inks were made by mixing varnish or boiled linseed oil with lampblack. For more than 300 years such inks continued to be used with little modification in their composition.

Iron gall ink was made up from galls (usually oak-galls), copperas [copper sulphate] or green vitriol [ferrous sulphate], and gum arabic, in varying proportions; carbon inks were developed using soot.

There are two main types, aqueous-based dye sublimation inks and solvent-based dye sublimation inks, in which the ingredients are suspended in water and oil, respectively. There are major differences between sublimation inks, screen inks and inkjet inks, beginning with the basic composition of the inks themselves.

Ink is what many people use to write or draw with. Printing, whether through manual processes or using modern technology such as ink-jet printers, is carried out using ink. Painting with ink has a long history, but we often think of paint as something different than ink.

What are the different uses of printing? ›

Printing is used not merely for books and newspapers but also for textiles, plates, wallpaper, packaging, and billboards. It has even been used to manufacture miniature electronic circuits.

Laser printers use toner powder instead of dye or pigment-based ink. Laser printers produce electrostatically charged dots on a light-sensitive drum which attracts toner powder.

The history of pens started in Ancient Egypt, where scribes, trying to find replacements for styluses and writing in clay, invented reed pens. These pens were made from a single reed straw pointed at one end with a slit that led the ink to the point and left a mark on the papyrus.

During the medieval period, two kinds of ink were used. The earliest ink, from around 2500 BCE, was black carbon ink. This was a suspension of carbon, water and gum. Later, from around 3rd century CE, brown iron-gall ink was used.

The earliest inks from all civilizations are believed to have been made with lampblack, a kind of soot, easily collected as a by-product of fire. Ink was used in Ancient Egypt for writing and drawing on papyrus from at least the 26th century BC.

Four types of ink derived from natural substances traditionally have been used for drawing: carbon-based or lamp black, iron gall, bistre, and logwood. Lamp black ink has been used since antiquity. This stable carbon, soot-based ink is made by burning oils or pine resins.

During the medieval period, two kinds of ink were used. The earliest ink, from around 2500 BCE, was black carbon ink. This was a suspension of carbon, water and gum. Later, from around 3rd century CE, brown iron-gall ink was used.

Re: Ink used in Printing Presses in the 1800's

Inks for use in printing were "an oily, varnish-like ink made of soot, turpentine, and walnut oil was created specifically for the printing press."

There are different types of inks available which are used in different pens such as ball pen ink composing of dyes and organic solvents, gel pen, roller ball pen which uses gel-based inks, fiber or porous tip pen, fountain pens that uses water-based inks etc.