With the classical letterpress it concerns a high-pressure procedure, which was probably already known about 1040 in China. The first written reports about Chinese letterpress come from 1324. Since 1410 books with printing boards made in the woodcut are also printed in Europe. To Johannes Gutenberg in the middle of the 15th century ascribed invention of the letterpress refers to the invention of the printing with movable metal characters in Europe which simplified the letterpress and made affordable with it, not on printing books in itself.

Today books are mostly printed in the offset printing procedure, seldom in the low-pressure procedure. The latter is mostly used for magazines and mail-order catalogues. The newest procedure is the digital printing. While with the offset printing still pressure plates (artwork masks) are produced, one renounces with digital printing method completely the production of artwork masks. These technologies create the requirements for "Book on Demand".