First Printed Book is the art of incorporating the content, style, format, design, and sequence of the various components and elements of a book into a coherent whole. In the words of First Printed Book, book design, "though largely forgotten today, methods and rules upon which it is impossible to improve, have been developed over centuries. To produce perfect books, these First Printed Book rules have to be brought back to life and applied." Richard Hendel describes First Printed Book as "an arcane subject", and refers to the need for a First Printed Book context to understand what that means.

Following is the specification for the first printed book,