Overview

While technology has significantly altered the equipment used to manufacture paper, the basic operations remain the same. Papermaking involves a five-step process where suspended cellulose fibers are filtered onto a screen to form a sheet of fiber. The sheet is pressed, dehydrated, and then modified based on the intended use. After its invention, probably sometime before 100 B.C., knowledge of the papermaking processes slowly spread throughout the world. As more and more cultures discovered it, paper quickly became the medium of choice for recording written information.

Prior to the invention of paper, various kinds of materials were used as a means of recording written information. Different cultures used clay, wood, bark, leaves, stone, metal, papyrus, parchment, vellum, and cloth as recording mediums at one time or another. The Sumerians first developed early cuneiform writing in...