The origins of real paper happened in South East Asia. Like the people of Egypt, the Chinese had, nearly 5000 years in the past, invented a pictographic style of writing. They too had been utilizing various types of things to scribe upon, most commonly lengths of bamboo and silk woven into a fine fabric and it is possible that the barkcloth they were making for other unconnected purposes from the Paper. Mulberry was made use of also.
History leads us to believe that in 105AD an official named Tsai Lung, brought out usable paper, though it is almost certain from archaeological digs that in fact it was in existence in what is now the People's Republic of China for more than likely two centuries prior to Tsai Lung.
Back in olden times setting down words was generally done on bamboo or on pieces of silk, which were called Ji in those days. However, the prohibitive cost of silk and bamboo being too heavy, these two materials were inconvenient. About this time Tsai Lun thought of making use of bark, hemp, rags, and fish nets. In 105 years after the birth of Christ he submitted a report to the emperor on the process of making paper and was endowed with high praise for his abilities. Since those distant days paper has been utilized all over the world and is called the "paper of Marquis Tsai".
If indeed the above title is Marquis Tsai's entitlement or not, will probably never be known! Nevertheless the important consideration must be that they discovered that they could grind certain compounds derived from plant matter into a mache, oust spume, float the mache in liquid, screen it out onto textile sheets and allow it to dry. When fully dried, it congealed into a hard, firm sheet that turned out to be astonishingly light, and as long as it was not allowed to get wet, proved surprisingly dense.
This the easiest of paper making technologies is even now still being used in precisely a similar way within Nepal and Tibet, the very first places to take the technolgies from China. A basic frame has a cloth made from cotton pulled and held over one side, watery mush is put in to the opposite end and spread around until it has become even. Then it is left so that it will allow the water to drain and the pulp to dry into a sheet of parchment which will be able to be removed by stripping off.
As time went by an extremely talented developer came to the conclusion that constructing a frame with an arrangement of ribbing and putting in place a fine bamboo mat that is removable over this, would enable the paper-making procedure to be accelerated to a much greater degree. Rather than tying up a single mold for every sheet of paper, severely restricting the amount of sheets that are able to be made at one time, a stack of sieved mash was able to be built up a layer at a time, with merely a piece of cotton thread between them which would facilitate separation at a later time. The stack would then be pressed lightly, and each sheet of paste transferred to a dry place.