From Early Stories to Today · Drawing 16
The printing press
Long ago
A printer prepares ink and paper to make copies of pages. The press helps transfer the ink onto the sheet.
Look together
Where can you see the stack of paper?
An idea to try
Draw a small announcement together. Ask how your child could share it with three people. Compare copying it, reading it aloud and making several copies.
For the adult reading along
A little more to discover
Printing reproduces pages by transferring ink onto paper. UQAM's typography workshop preserves typesetting and printing equipment and lets people use it. This heritage helps show that every printed page involves tools, preparation and precise movements.
The press in the illustration is simplified. Help your child distinguish writing a message by hand from producing several copies. The stack of sheets is a starting point: why prepare several similar pages? The drawing shows neither a particular old book nor every stage of printing. It opens a conversation about how words are shared.
Sources and context
These links lead to other websites. Explore them with an adult. Source titles appear in their original language; some linked pages are in French.
Source review: 2026-09-12. Illustrations simplify places and scenes; they are not historical documents.