College Street, Central Kolkata
College Street's Hand-Set Type Printers
Behind the famous second-hand book market, a handful of printing shops still set type by hand using lead movable type — a craft that's essentially extinct everywhere else.
Best Time to Visit
Weekday mornings (10am–1pm) when the presses are running. Closed Sundays.
Nearest Landmark
Presidency University main gate
How to Get There
Walk south from College Street metro station (Line 1). The printers are clustered in the lanes just west of the main road, near Presidency University. Look for shops with old wooden type cases visible through the doorway.
Local Tip
"Most of these printers do wedding invitation cards and festival notices. Ask if you can watch the type-setting process — many will happily show you, especially if you show genuine interest rather than just wanting photos. Some will set your name in lead type as a souvenir for a few rupees."
College Street is famous as one of the world’s great second-hand book markets. What’s less known is the printing ecosystem that grew up around it.
The last hand-setters
In the lanes adjacent to Coffee House and Presidency University, you’ll find a cluster of small printing shops that use technology most of the world abandoned in the 1980s. Lead movable type, hand-composed into forms, inked with rollers, pressed onto paper by machines that sometimes predate Indian independence.
These shops survive because they serve a clientele that still wants certain things — wedding invitations with that particular letterpress feel, religious notices with specific Bengali typefaces, bills and receipts with a formality that digital printing somehow doesn’t convey. The craft continues not through heritage tourism but through actual demand.
What you’ll see
The type cases are the thing — shallow wooden trays partitioned into hundreds of cells, each holding a lead character. The compositor picks type character by character, setting it into a composing stick, the text appearing mirror-reversed. It’s slow, physical, completely tactile work.
The machines are extraordinary objects. Treadle-operated platen presses, cylinder presses from British manufacturers, all held together with improvised repairs and decades of accumulated understanding.
Getting the most from it
Go on a weekday. Go in the morning. Don’t rush. These are working businesses, not tourist attractions — the printers are doing their jobs. If you’re genuinely curious and respectful of their time, most will explain what they’re doing.