The origins of proper paper happened in what is now the People's Republic of China. Similar to the people of Egypt, the Chinese had, almost fifty centuries ago, invented a kind of writing that used pictures. They too had been using several types of objects to write upon, most commonly strips of bamboo and silk woven into a fine fabric and it is possible that the barkcloth they used for other purposes from the Paper. Mulberry was made use of as well.
Legend leads us to believe that in 105 years after the birth of Christ a government worker by the name of Tsai Lung, developed paper, though it appears from archaeological digs that in fact it was being worked with in South East Asia for probably two hundred years prior to him.
Way back during olden times setting down words or pictograms was generally done on some derivative of bamboo or occasionally on lengths of silk, which were then called ji. However, the prohibitive cost of silk and bamboo being very heavy, these two materials were not of great use. At this time Tsai Lun thought of making use of the bark from trees, fish nets, hemp, and rags. In 105AD he delivered a report to the emperor regarding the process of making paper and got many accolades for his ability. From those days paper has been used every place and is called the "paper of Marquis Tsai".
Whether the above historical tag is Tsai's entitlement or not, will probably not ever be known! Nevertheless the most important consideration has to be that they discovered that if they ground some compounds taken from plant material into a mush, extract impure substances, place the mush in liquid, filter it out onto cloth sheets and allow it to dry. When fully dried, it compressed into a firm, durable sheet that was particularly light, and providing it was not allowed to get damp or wet, turned out to be remarkably tenacious.
This the most simple of papermaking techniques is even now practised in precisely a similar way within Nepal and Tibet, the initial countries to make use of the craft from China. A simple frame utilises a cotton cloth made to stretch over a side, diluted grume is put in to the opposite end and spread about until it is level. After which it is left so that it will let the water to drain out of it and the pulp to dry in to a sheet of parchment which can be removed.
It eventually came to pass that an extremely talented developer realized that manufacturing a frame with ribbing and placing a delicate removable bamboo mat across this, would enable the procedure to be accelerated to a great degree. Instead of using one mould for each sheet of paper, severely restricting the amount of sheets that are able to be manufactured at the same time, a stack of sieved paste was able to be built up layer upon layer, with only a length of cotton thread between them which would enable later separation. The stack would then be squeezed slightly, and every sheet of mash shifted to a dry place.