Born as Matěj Valentin Kramerius to the Roman Catholic family of burghers of Klatovy town, southwestern Bohemia, he went to the Jesuit high school there and then studied philosophy and law at the Charles-Ferdinand University in Prague (1778–1780).

During his studies he earned money by cataloguing the library of a nobleman, which gave him access to old Czech books.

From 1786 he worked as a journalist in the only and oldest Czech language weekly Pražské poštovské noviny but in 1789 he started a newspaper of his own (renamed to Krameriusovy c. k. vlastenecké noviny[1] in 1791), which he published regularly until his death.

As a result of its commercial success, he was able to buy a printing shop and subsequently established a publishing house (named "Česká expedice") in 1795.

Kramerius himself wrote about 80 books of varying quality; most successful were his calendars for farmers.