The history of proper paper started in South East Asia. Similar to the people of Egypt, the Chinese had, nearly fifty centuries ago, developed a style of writing that used pictures. They also had been using many different kinds of things to write on, notably strips of bamboo and processed silk and possibly the barkcloth they were making for other purposes derived from the Paper. Mulberry was made use of also.
Historical documentation tells us that in 105 years after the birth of Christ a government worker named Tsai Lung, created paper, although it is almost certain from finds by archaeologists that in fact it was being worked with in what is now the People's Republic of China for probably two hundred years before Tsai Lung.
Back in times gone by setting down words or pictograms was generally on some form of bamboo or sometimes on pieces of silk, which were known as Ji in those days. Nonetheless silk was expensive and bamboo being heavy, these materials were inconvenient. Due to this Tsai Lun came up with the idea of utilizing the bark from trees, rags, hemp, and fish nets. In 105AD he delivered a report to the emperor regarding the process of making paper and was endowed with many accolades for his creativity. Consequently, from that time paper has been in use globally and is known as the "paper of Marquis Tsai".
Whether the above title is Marquis Tsai's entitlement, will very likely never be uncovered! But the important consideration has to be that it was discovered that they could grind particular plant-derived compounds into a mush, depose unwanted materials, float the mush in water, sieve it out onto textile sheets giving it enough time to dry out. When fully dried, it calcified into a hard, tough sheet that turned out to be surprisingly light, and as long as it was not allowed to get wet, proved exceedingly robust.
It's a fact that this extremely simple of paper making technologies is even now still being used in precisely a similar way within Nepal and Tibet, the very first regions to take the craft from China. A simple frame makes use of a kind of cotton cloth pulled and held over one side, watery mash is situated in to the far side and spread about until it is level. Then it is suspended so that it will let the liquid to drain out of it and the mache to dry into a sheet of parchment which may be taken off.
At some stage a clever developer came to realize that manufacturing a frame with an arrangement of ribbing and placing a delicate replaceable bamboo mat across this, would allow the procedure to be quickened to a much greater degree. Instead of tying up a single mold for every parchment sheet, severely restricting the number of sheets that can be manufactured at one time, a stack of sieved pulp was able to be built up a layer at a time, with merely a length of cotton thread between them to help with separation at a later time. The stack would then be pressed gently, and each layer of paste shifted to a dry board.