The history of proper paper happened in what is now the People's Republic of China. Like the people of Egypt, the Chinese had, almost five thousand years ago, invented a style of writing that used pictures. They too had been making use of various types of things to scribe upon, notably strips of bamboo and silk woven into a fine fabric and it is possible that the barkcloth they made for other unconnected purposes derived out of the Paper. Mulberry was also used.
Legend leads us to believe that in 105AD a member of the government called Tsai Lung, created paper, though it is almost certain from archaeological digs that actually it was being used in South East Asia for more than likely two hundred years before Tsai Lung.
Back during ancient times gone by writing was generally done on some form of bamboo or occasionally on lengths of silk, which were known as Ji then. Nonetheless the cost of silk and bamboo being heavy, these two materials were inconvenient. At this time Tsai Lun thought of utilizing bark, fish nets, rags, and hemp. In 105 years after the birth of Christ he submitted a report to the emperor about the process of paper making and got much praise for his ability. Since those distant days paper has been availed of every place and is called the "paper of Marquis Tsai".
If the above historical tag is Tsai's entitlement or not, will likely not ever be known! But the important thing is that the discovery was made that they could pound some plant-derived compounds into a mush, separate spume, float the mush in water, screen it out onto textile sheets and allow it to dry. After the drying process was complete, it congealed into a firm, durable sheet that turned out to be really light, and as long as it was not allowed to get damp or wet, turned out to be very dense.
It's a fact that this extremely simple of paper making techniques is even now practised in exactly a similar way within Tibet and Nepal, the very first places to learn the technolgies from China. A basic frame utilises a kind of cotton cloth pulled and held over a single side, very watery mash is poured in to the far side and spread about until it is even. It is then left hanging somewhere to let the liquid to drain and the pulp to dry into a parchment sheet which may be removed by stripping off.
At some point in time an extremely talented individual came to realize that manufacturing a frame with an arrangement of ribbing and putting in place a fine replaceable bamboo mat across this, would allow the paper-making procedure to be speeded up enormously. Rather than tying up a single mold for every paper sheet, severely limiting the amount of sheets that may be manufactured at one time, a stack of sieved mache could be built up layer upon layer, with just a piece of cotton thread between them to enable separation at a later time. The stack would then be squeezed slightly, and each sheet of grume shifted to a dry board.