Short answers, pulled from the story.
The Fourth Buddhist Council convened in 29 BC transformed the oral tradition into written scripture approximately 454 years after the Buddha's passing. King Asoka sent missionaries to Sri Lanka during his reign before this event occurred.
The Pali Canon divides into three general categories known as pitaka which means basket in the Pali language. These baskets refer to the physical receptacles used to store palm-leaf manuscripts in ancient times and include the Vinaya Piñaka, Sutta Piñaka, and Abhidhamma Piñaka.
Oldest known manuscripts date from late fifteenth century due to climate conditions proving not conducive to survival of manuscripts. Very few examples exist before the eighteenth century despite the canon existing in written form for two millennia.
The first complete printed edition of the Canon was published in Burma in 1900 spanning thirty-eight volumes. This edition represents a major milestone in the history of the text following centuries of oral transmission.
The standard modern edition of Chinese Buddhist Canon is Taisho Revised Tripiñaka containing one hundred major divisions totaling over eighty thousand pages. It includes Vinayas for Dharmaguptaka Sarvastivada Mahisakasa and Mahasanghika schools plus four major Agamas analogous to Pali Nikayas.