Some fairly large works were printed using movable type, famously https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gujin_Tushu_Jicheng https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gujin_Tushu_Ji

Some fairly large works were printed using movable type, famously https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gujin_Tushu_Jicheng https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gujin_Tushu_Jicheng So I'm not sure the idea that printing never caught on is really correct. You'd need to do an exhaustive survey of every written work ever produced to check. Also, the Gutenberg bible https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Gutenberg_bible_Old_Testament_Epistle_of_St_Jerome.jpg https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Gutenberg_bible_Old_... seems to have had about 60×40 characters, amounting to thousands of individual dies to print a page. (And IIRC Gutenberg used a trick where he had multiple versions of the same character in different widths to create perfectly justified lines without any gaps.) The amount of metal dies required doesn't seem to be hugely different. Also also, the Manchu ruling class had their own alphabetic script, as did various other ethnic minorities.