What has not been adequately studied in the history of the printing press in Latin America is the link between the local production of paper and the development of proper behaviour. This panel discusses the emergence of industrial paper making and the varied uses of print materials to mould people’s daily habits in Mexico and Venezuela between the Napoleonic invasion of Spain and the 1860s. These two countries offer interesting comparisons because Mexico City was the first city in the Americas to establish a printing press and hence had a long tradition of printing by the end of Spanish colonial rule; Caracas, on the other hand, was among the last colonial capitals to obtain this technology when its first printing workshop was set up in 1808. As they navigated the challenges of war and the political volatility of the early post-independence period, printers in both cities found that among their most quick-selling items were texts filled with lists of prayers or moral precepts. Novenas and etiquette manuals – the primary sources under study in this panel – circulated widely in Mexico and Venezuela and are still being printed across Latin America to this day.