It is the first incunabulum written in the Serbian recension of Church Slavonic, as well as the first book printed in Cyrillic in Southeast Europe.

It is characterized by high quality and clean two-coloured printing, red and black, with finely formed letters.

It is decorated with headpieces and initials printed from woodcuts in the spirit of the Renaissance with traces of old manuscript traditions.

The National Library of Montenegro "Đurđe Crnojević" in Cetinje published 600 facsimiles of Octoechos of the First Tone in 1987.

It has six woodcut illustrations, made by an artist who managed to put rather complex compositions with many characters on a relatively small space.