Reusable characters and whole blocks
A woodblock preserves an entire page, whereas movable type divides its text into separate pieces assembled for printing. Afterwards the pieces can be sorted and reused. Reuse can reduce carving but introduces composition, correction and distribution work. Possessing movable characters alone does not determine how efficiently books are produced.
Materials in East Asia
Accounts describe Bi Sheng’s ceramic type in eleventh-century China, followed by wooden and metal types in East Asia. Korean metal-type printing predates the expansion of European printing. Different scripts require different stocks of characters, with repeated letters or characters demanding duplicates; organizing the stock is part of the technology.
A coordinated production system
Type height, secure fastening, ink and paper all affect legibility. Fifteenth-century European printing combined cast metal type, suitable ink and pressing equipment into a working system. This differs from first conceiving reusable characters; similarities between technologies do not by themselves prove a particular route of direct transmission.
Why block printing persisted
Blocks retain corrected pages for later impressions, while type permits continual recomposition. Both methods could coexist. Print runs, reprinting, character stocks and labour costs affected choices. Editing, paper, binding and distribution also mattered, making the history of printing inseparable from publishing and the circulation of knowledge.