It all started in 1967 with a higher education correspondence course called Cépaduès, an acronym for Centre d'enseignement et de préparation au DUES (DUES being the Diplôme universitaire d'études scientifiques) corresponding to the first two years of university.

Cépaduès correspondence courses were developing and the events of May 1968 were an unexpected boost to the development of this nascent enterprise. This period allowed Cépaduès to make its services known.

In the years following 1968, each university took on its own teaching programmes and correspondence courses had to be personalised.

In order to diversify the seasonal activity of distance learning, Cépaduès initiated, as early as 1969, a publishing activity based on books of high scientific level. In 1976 the activity of Cépaduès switched definitively to scientific, technical and aeronautical publishing, the correspondence courses being abandoned for good.

Since its creation, Cépaduès had, of course, an integrated printing house to produce the course booklets. This structure was specialised in short runs, a rare activity at that time. The aeronautical industry had needs in this field for its technical documentation. The SNIAS (which later became Aerospace and then EADS, of which Airbus is a subsidiary) became a Cépaduès contractor for many short-run printing jobs.

In 1972, a dichotomy was made by creating an independent printing house to process and reproduce this aeronautical documentation.

The year 1980 was the beginning of a new era for Cépaduès: the publication of the first pilot's manual for pilot's licence candidates.

Cépaduès remains a reference for scientific and technical books.