It goes without saying that the brush and ink are the essential tools for printing . Before caving board, it is needed to use brush to write manuscript. Ink itself was not only a material for writing but also a pigment for printing.

Oracle bone inscriptions were first written and then carved. This indicates that brushes and ink already existed by the fourteenth century BC. By the time of the bamboo slips and silk books, brushes and ink had been in wide use for a long time. During the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods (770-221BC) the quality of ink greatly improved. In the Han Dynasty (206BC-220AD), pine soot was first used in ink making.