Why was woodblock printing made

The earliest examples of woodblock printing to survive are from China. They come from the Han Dynasty, before AD 220. The Chinese carved wooden blocks into words and symbols and then used them to print letters, news articles etc. Wood was used as a material for printing blocks because it is fairly soft and easy to carve. Stone printing pre-dates woodblock printing. However, it is more difficult to carve symbols, letters and shapes into stone than it to carve the same shapes into wooden blocks.