Lachner became a citizen of Basel in 1488, where he was traceable from 1485 as a bookseller. Before that, he was probably in Augsburg. At first, from Venice he imported editions of classical and humanist authors among others. From 1493 he started publishing himself. First he left in 1492 in Freiburg with the printer Kilian Fischer Perlustratio in IV libros Sententiarum of Bonaventure with a circulation of 200 print (the first certain pressure in Freiburg). In 1495 he printed in Basel (a commentary of Thomas Aquinas on the Pauline letters). He had two bookstores in Basel and regularly attended fairs in Frankfurt, Lyon and Strasbourg. From 1513 he was the commercial director of the printing works of Johannes Froben (died 1527), who in 1510 had married Wolfgang Lachner's daughter, Gertrud. He was also involved in the Frobens publishing program: another daughter, Anna, was married in 1524 to the printer Hieronymus Froben. Lachner had two sons and six daughters, along with three other children who died in 1519 from the plague.
