The history of true paper started in China. Similar to the Egyptians, the Chinese had, virtually 50 centuries in the past, developed a type of pictographic writing. The Egyptians too had been utilizing several types of things to scribe on, usually lengths of bamboo and processed silk and possibly the barkcloth they utilized for other unconnected purposes derived from the Paper. Mulberry was made use of too.
History leads us to believe that in 105 years after the birth of Christ an official going by the name of Tsai Lung, brought out usable paper, although it is clear from archaeological discoveries that it was actually being worked with in South East Asia for probably two hundred years prior to Tsai Lung.
Back in ancient times setting down words was usually done on some derivative of bamboo or sometimes on strips of silk, which were known as Ji in those days. But the soaring cost of silk and the weight of bamboo, these materials were not convenient. Due to this Tsai Lun thought of making use of bark from trees, fish nets, rags, and hemp. In 105AD he submitted a report to the emperor regarding the process of paper manufacture and received many accolades for his creativity. Since those days paper has been in use every place and is known as the "paper of Marquis Tsai".
If this accolade is accurate or not, will probably never be known! However, the important consideration is that it was found that if they pounded particular compounds taken from plants into a grume, abolish impure substances, put the grume in water, sieve it onto cloth sheets and give it time to dry out. When it dried, it congealed into a firm, durable sheet that turned out to be particularly light, and providing it did not come into contact with water, turned out to be really resilient.
It's a fact that this very simple of paper making techniques is still being used in precisely the same way in Nepal and Tibet, the first areas to pick up the techniques from what is now the People's Republic of China. A simple frame makes use of a cotton cloth stretched over a single side, watery paste is situated in to the other side and spread around until it is level. It is then left hanging that will let the liquid to leave it and the mash to dry into a sheet of parchment which may be removed by stripping off.
It eventually came to pass that a talented developer figured that building a frame with ribs and putting a fine replaceable bamboo mat across it, would allow the paper-making process to be speeded up greatly. Rather than using a single mold for every sheet of paper, severely limiting the amount of sheets that may be made at one time, a stack of sieved pulp was able to be built up layer upon layer, with only a piece of cotton thread between them in order to enable separation at a later time. The stack would then be pressed very slightly, and each layer of mush moved to a dry board.