雕版印刷是最早出现于中国的印刷形式，在印刷史上有“活化石”之称。

Engraved block printing, a printing technique originating in China, is regarded as a “living fossil” in the history of printing.

　   将木材锯成一块块木板，把要印的字写在薄纸上，反贴在木板上，再根据每个字的笔画，用刀一笔一笔雕刻出来，使每个字的笔画突出在木板上。印书的时候，先用刷子蘸了墨，在雕好的板上刷一下，接着，用白纸覆在板上，另外拿一把干净的刷子在纸背上轻轻一刷，将纸拿下来，一页书就印好了。一页一页印好以后，装订成册，一本书也就印成了。这种印刷方法，是在木板上雕好字再印的，所以被称为“雕版印刷”。

First of all, a piece of thin paper with characters written on it is pasted on a block that is carefully sawed from wood, with the character-covered side facing the block. Then following the strokes of each character, the background is carved away, leaving the strokes raised on the block. Coming to the printing process, first the engraved block needs to be brushed with ink, then cover it with a piece of blank paper and use a clean brush to slightly brush the back of the paper. After that, take off the paper and a page of a book is ready. After all the pages are printed in this way and bound together, a book is produced. Since the printing is carried out on an engraved woodblock, the method is known as “engraved block printing”.

　   公元7世纪，中国人发明的这种雕版印刷术把人从繁重的抄写劳动中解放了出来。1041年，北宋的毕昇发明了泥活字印刷术，使排版印刷的速度大大提高；1436年，德国的谷登堡也开始用活字版印《圣经》。现存最早的雕版印刷作品是公元868年的《金刚经》，目前保存在大英博物馆。

Engraved block printing was created by ancient Chinese in the 7th century; it liberated people from the onerous job of copying by hand. In the year 1041, Bi Sheng of the Northern Song Dynasty invented movable-type printing by using baked clay blocks, which greatly accelerated the speed of typesetting and printing. Later in 1436, Johannes Gutenberg, a German goldsmith and printer, began printing the Bible employing movable-type printing technique. The oldest surviving work of engraved block printing is Vajracchedika-sutra printed in 868, which is now kept in the British Museum.

　   扬州是中国雕版印刷术的发源地，是中国国内唯一保存全套古老雕版印刷工艺的城市。18世纪初，清代的地方官曹寅受命于康熙皇帝，主持刻印《全唐诗》，将扬州雕版印刷业推至前所未有的高峰。1949年以后，为传承这一特殊技艺，扬州成立了“广陵古籍刻印社”，社内保存了全套古老雕版印刷工艺，曾藏有三十余万片古籍版片，这些古籍版片现藏于新建的扬州中国雕版印刷博物馆。

Yangzhou, the city from which engraved block printing originated, is the only place in China that keeps a whole set of the ancient block printing technologies. At the beginning of the 18th century, a local government official called Cao Yin, under the order of Emperor Kangxi of the Qing Dynasty, directed the printing of A Complete Collection of Tang Poetry, bringing the block printing industry in Yangzhou to an unprecedented boom. After 1949, Guangling Classics Block Printing House was founded in Yangzhou to pass on this special craftsmanship, with a whole set of ancient block printing technologies kept in it. Furthermore, it once kept 300,000 blocks of classics in store, which were later moved to the newly built Chinese Block Printing Museum in Yangzhou.