The great need of books for the conversion of the Tagalog and the Sangley immigrants to the Catholic faith resulted in the use of the Chinese method of printing from blocks of wood in the early months of 1593, barely a generation after Legazpi had founded the city of Manila on the southern bank of the Pasig River.

The absence of any European or native to do the work of printing forced the Dominicans to employ the services of some Sino immigrants who had experience in that line of work in China. Thus these two books were chiseled on blocks of wood, and inked paper impressions were taken from it.

These two books were the Doctrina Christiana in Spanish and Tagalog, of 76 pages, and the Wu-chi t'ienchu cheng-chiao chen-chuan shih-lu (known as the Shih-lu, or "Veritable Records"), in classical Chinese, of 124 pages.

Doctrina Christiana in Spanish and Tagalog

Wu-chi t'ienchu cheng-chiao chen-chuan shih-lu (known as the Shih-lu, or "Veritable Records")