On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article paper planters. Thin material for writing, printing, etc.

The oldest known archaeological fragments of the immediate precursor to modern paper date to the 2nd century BCE in China. The pulp papermaking process is ascribed to Cai Lun, a 2nd-century CE Han court eunuch. It has been said that knowledge of papermaking was passed to the Islamic world after the Battle of Talas in 751 CE when two Chinese papermakers were captured as prisoners. Although the veracity of this story is uncertain, paper started to be made in Samarkand soon after. Before the industrialisation of paper production the most common fibre source was recycled fibres from used textiles, called rags. The rags were from hemp, linen and cotton. Egypt and other Mediterranean cultures for writing before the introduction of paper.

To make pulp from wood, a chemical pulping process separates lignin from cellulose fibre. The microscopic structure of paper: Micrograph of paper autofluorescing under ultraviolet illumination. The individual fibres in this sample are around 10 µm in diameter. There are three main chemical pulping processes: the sulfite process dates back to the 1840s and was the dominant method before the second world war. In the TMP process, wood is chipped and then fed into steam-heated refiners, where the chips are squeezed and converted to fibres between two steel discs. In the groundwood process, debarked logs are fed into grinders where they are pressed against rotating stones to be made into fibres. This incorporates any substandard or grade-change paper made within the paper mill itself, which then goes back into the manufacturing system to be re-pulped back into paper.

This is fibre from paper that has been used for its intended end use and includes office waste, magazine papers and newsprint. Besides the fibres, pulps may contain fillers such as chalk or china clay, which improve its characteristics for printing or writing. The pulp is fed to a paper machine, where it is formed as a paper web and the water is removed from it by pressing and drying. Pressing the sheet removes the water by force. Once the water is forced from the sheet, a special kind of felt, which is not to be confused with the traditional one, is used to collect the water. When making paper by hand, a blotter sheet is used instead.

Drying involves using air or heat to remove water from the paper sheets. On the paper machine, the most common is the steam-heated can dryer. The paper may then undergo sizing to alter its physical properties for use in various applications. Paper at this point is uncoated. Coated paper has a thin layer of material such as calcium carbonate or china clay applied to one or both sides in order to create a surface more suitable for high-resolution halftone screens.