Of the 103 prints produced by Caxton, each can be placed in one of four specific categories. His distinct categories of print include his own transactions; works of poetry by poets like Chaucer; prose works; and miscellaneous pieces for private clients. The Canterbury Tales, Bolchronicon, and The Knight of the Tower are just a few of the works printed by Caxton.
One of the many problems that arose as a result of the printing press was the choice of whether foreign words should be used in translations, or replaces them with native English words. Another conflict arose as to which variety of English should be followed within the regional differences. Although there was no general consensus on which variety should be used many printers tried to stick to certain standards. Printers also had to deal with the punctuation and spelling of words. Native writers also faced the challenge of their language being changed to broaden its' audience of readers. The slow production of theses works also caused problems. It took Caxton seven weeks to print Cordial, a book with 74 leaves.
Printing is also credited as setting some of the standards of spelling
and punctuation. Reformers like Willliam Bullokar and John Hart had the
opportunity to now look at various works and try to establish a system
to conform spelling. The advent of printing gave rise to their observations
because it now gave them something concrete to explore. Bullokar developed
an alphabet of 37 letters, A Short Introduction or guiding to print, write,
and reade Inglish speech, as a solution to the problem. Within printing
many struggled to stay within a certain formula to accommodate most readers.
Printing also gave writers many opportunities to get their works into a
broader circulation. Many manuscripts, texts, transcripts, and letters
have survived decades since the advent of printing. Within the following
150 years, nearly 20,000 books appeared.
The analysis of English became much more concrete, because now scholars
had something tangible to study. Superfluite came into existence
with the many printed forms of works. It was the use of more letters than
the pronunciation needed as stated by Hart. If printing had not been invented
Hart would not have been able to recognize the overflow of letters in words.
This whole concept comes as a result of the printing industry. He struggled
to find the relevance of certain letters within words and phrases. Benjamin
Franklin, a former printer, also noticed some discrepancies within the
text of books. He wrote a letter to Noah Webster in favor of noun capitalization.
He concluded that without capitalization it was difficult for those not
accustomed to our language to read English. The development of the English
language was slowly documented in the many volumes of works of each era.
We now have dictionaries, thesauruses, reference books, magazines, and
a host of other materials that we rely on since the advent of printing.