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450 of his time, Schœffer was a copyist, but we have no evidence that he was a calligrapher or an illuminator. As a student of the University of Paris, he was qualified to read and correct the proofs of a Bible in Latin, and this may have been the duty for which he was engaged.If so, he was not really needed in the printing office until the types were founded, or until 1453; but whether he came then or before, it is obvious that he entered the printing office as a boy from school, and that all he knew of printing was taught him by Gutenberg. He proved an apt scholar. Fust's confidence in his ability is enough to show that he had added skill to his knowledge, and that, when Gutenberg departed, he was competent to supervise and manage all the departments of the printing office.

Bernard thinks that Schœffer's first work in his new place was to change the appearance of the Bible of 42 lines by the cancellation of eight pages of 42 lines, and the substitution of pages of 40 lines, with summaries printed in red ink. The extraordinary licence then enjoyed by copyists allowed the compositor to abbreviate the words of a manuscript copy