While for more than sixty years, since its development, lithographic printing had been done on hand-operated presses, Senefelder was certain that all the operations could be better carried out mechanically. The first lithographic machine was in operation by 1852. This press had a bed that carried the stone, a cylinder with grippers for the sheet, a feed-board, damping and inking rollers. The flywheel was turned by hand. Between 1864 and 1875 various flat-bed presses were made in Britain, France and Germany. However, lithographic stones were heavy, cumbersome, difficult to register, and liable to breakage. Senefelder found that metals such as zinc had the same properties. Zinc was cheaper and lighter than limestone and could be curved around the cylinder of a printing press.

Early flat-bed litho presses required a great deal of power and the movement of these machines was clumsy. In addition, the rollers were comparatively noisy.
Zinc was cheaper and lighter than limestone and made for a more efficient printing surface. As a result, metal plates became widely used on flat-bed machines as an alternative to stone. This technical and practical progress with thin, flexible printing surfaces paved the way for the rotary type of machine that appeared towards the end of the nineteenth century.