In the early days of Marathi printing, fonts were largely based on the Devanagari script, which was also used for other languages like Hindi and Sanskrit. The first Marathi font, "Ballia," was introduced in the 19th century, but it was not widely used. It wasn't until the 20th century that Marathi typography began to take shape, with the introduction of fonts like "Marathi 1908" and "Krishna."