In AD 1297, movable type and transfer typesetting were created.

In A.D. 1297, Wang Zhen invented wood movable type and wheel typesetting.

Wang Zhen was an agronomist in Yuan Dynasty. He made many innovations in agriculture and contributed to printing technology. He invented wood movable type and wheel typesetting, which was an improvement on movable type printing.

Wooden movable type is a detachable template carved from wood. It is more time-saving than block printing, and more durable and clear than clay movable type. Wang Zhen printed books such as Jingde County Records with wooden movable type, which is the earliest recorded printed version of wooden movable type.

The wheel typesetting method is a large wheel disc made of light wood, with a diameter of about seven feet and a shaft height of three feet. The roulette wheel can rotate freely on the axle. According to the classification of ancient rhyme, put wooden movable type into the grid in the plate respectively. He made two roulette wheels this big, and the compositor sat between them and turned the roulette wheels to find words. This is what Wang Zhen said: "People are based on words, and words are based on rhyme".

Introduction to Wang Zhen:

Wang Zhen (127 1 year-1368) was a famous agronomist and printing technology innovator in Yuan Dynasty. He was one of the four great agronomists in ancient China, and he was as famous as Jia Sixie in the Northern Wei Dynasty and Xu Guangqi in the Ming Dynasty. His main work is Wang Zhennong's Book, which was an important work of China agriculture at that time, and comprehensively and systematically discussed the knowledge and technology of agricultural production in a broad sense.

Wang Zhen served as two counties in the Yuan Dynasty, namely Jingde County in Xuanzhou (now Jingde in Anhui) and Yongfeng County in Xinzhou (now Guangfeng in Jiangxi). During his tenure, he did many good things for the people, such as building schools, building bridges, providing medicines and teaching farmers to plant trees. He lives frugally, honestly and is respected by people.

He inherited the traditional agriculture-oriented thought, and thought that "agriculture is also a matter of the world" and attached great importance to the development of agricultural production. He not only collected and studied agricultural books of past dynasties, but also personally observed and practiced agricultural operations and agricultural machinery in various places, and accumulated rich experience and knowledge. In addition, Wang Zhen is an innovator of printing technology. He invented wood movable type and wheel typesetting and improved movable type printing.