The origins of proper paper happened in China. Like the people of Egypt, the Chinese had, nearly fifty centuries in the past, created a style of writing that used images. The Egyptians also had been using many different kinds of things to scribe on, most usually lengths of bamboo and processed silk and it is possible that the barkcloth they made for other unconnected purposes derived out of the Paper. Mulberry was used also.
History leads us to believe that in 105AD an official named Tsai Lung, developed paper, although it seems from finds by archaeologists that actually it was in existence in South East Asia for more than likely two centuries before Tsai Lung.
Back in olden times setting down words was mainly done on bamboo or sometimes on pieces of silk, which were then called ji. However, the great price of silk and bamboo being very heavy, these two materials were not convenient. Around then Tsai Lun came up with the idea of making use of bark, fish nets, rags, and hemp. In 105 years after the birth of Christ he delivered a report to the emperor with regard to the process of making paper and got high praise for his thoughts. Since then paper has been availed of in almost every place on earth and is called the "paper of Marquis Tsai".
If indeed the above historical tag is Marquis Tsai's entitlement, will very likely never be known! But the most important factor is that it was discovered that they could pound particular substances taken from plants into a pulp, expel unwanted substances, put the pulp in water, sieve it out onto textile sheets allowing it to dry. When fully dried, it consolidated into a hard, firm sheet that turned out to be exceedingly light, and providing it did not get wet, turned out to be decidedly tough.
This simplest of papermaking techniques is even now practised in precisely the same way within Nepal and Tibet, the initial regions to make use of the techniques from what is now the People's Republic of China. A simple frame makes use of a type of cotton cloth pulled and held over one side, diluted mash is emptied in to the opposite side and spread about until it has reached a level. It is then left suspended in order for it to let the liquid to drain and the paste to dry in to a sheet of parchment which may be peeled off.
It eventually came to pass that a developer with great skills figured that making a frame with an arrangement of ribbing and putting a delicate removable bamboo mat across it, would enable the paper-making process to be speeded up fantastically. Rather than utilizing one mold for every sheet of paper, severely limiting the number of sheets that can be made at the same time, a stack of sieved mache was able to be built up layer upon layer, with merely a length of cotton thread between them in order to enable separation at a later time. The stack would then be squeezed very gently, and each layer of grume shifted to a dry board.