In the two ways of banknote settlement and banknote engraving, the carriers of information are rope, bamboo deed and wooden deed. In addition, humans also painted information on stone walls, carved it on pottery and bronze vessels, and wrote it on leaves and animal skins. The appearance of primitive characters promoted the inheritance of human history and the spread of culture. With the development of society, there are more and more documents. In order to facilitate writing and carving, text reform and font innovation continue. In order to facilitate portability, preservation and dissemination, innovations and reforms in writing tools, writing materials and printing technology are also under way. The development of writing has promoted the reform and development of writing tools (pens, lettering tools, etc.). ), writing materials and printing technology, and vice versa, complement each other.

Before the invention of paper, there were tortoise shells, animal bones, bronzes, brocade, bamboo slips and so on. From Shang Dynasty to Western Zhou Dynasty, hieroglyphics were mainly carved on hard Oracle Bone Inscriptions, bronzes and jades. At that time, the so-called pen was only used to paint colors and highlight nicks. In the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, the development of brush made bamboo slips, wooden slips and silk books become important writing materials, which promoted the spread of written information. "Mozi" has a cloud "written on bamboo and silk, carved on stones, carved on pots, and passed on to future generations." The ancients would weave simple chess pieces with silk rope, hemp rope and fine leather and write on them. During the Spring and Autumn Period and Warring States Period from 770 BC to 22 1 BC, a hundred schools of thought contended, and various academic works emerged one after another. Bamboo slips became the main form of writing. Thinkers and educators, represented by Confucius, compiled and edited a batch of ancient books, that is, ancient books such as Ci, Shu, Shi, Yi Li, and The Five Classics of Spring and Autumn, which were handed down to today, and appeared in the form of bamboo slips at that time. Silk is a writing material used together with bamboo slips. During the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, silk was also widely used as a material for writing books or official documents by the upper class. In some pre-Qin works, bamboo slips and silk books are often mentioned together, which shows that bamboo slips and silk books were the main materials for writing characters hundreds of years before the invention of paper. But because silk is expensive, it is not as widely used as bamboo slips and wooden slips.

After bamboo slips and silks, the writing material is paper, which has gone through hundreds of years from its appearance to its universal use. But the word "paper" appeared as early as the 2nd century BC. Ye Fan, the author of the Book of the Later Han Dynasty, said: "Those who use silk are called paper", that is, "paper" originally refers to silk as the carrier of words. However, according to the traditional definition of papers, some scholars do not agree with this view. Paper is defined as: plant fiber raw materials are made into high-purity dispersed fibers by artificial mechanochemistry, mixed with water to make slurry, filtered by leaky mold, so that the fibers are interwoven into wet wax in the mold, and then dehydrated by dry urine to form smooth sheets interwoven with fibers with certain strength, which are used as materials for writing, printing and packaging. Therefore, some scholars think that Ye Fan's statement is debatable, while Li Fang, a retired teacher born in Zhang Cun, Chang 'an County, Shaanxi Province, has been fascinated by the study of paper history and culture for more than 20 years and put forward the "Shui Piao Theory" theory about the origin of paper. According to 1957 Baqiao Paper unearthed in Xi, Zhongyan Paper unearthed in Fufeng, Shaanxi in the early years of the Eastern Han Dynasty, and the folk song "Feng Chu Paper, Shui Piao Curtain" in his hometown, he finally came to the conclusion that the embryonic form of paper was that all kinds of bark and hemp plants were soaked and fermented in geomantic omen to form thin protoplasm, and then attached to the bamboo washed by the flood.

There are still different opinions about the inventor of papermaking in academic circles. The Official Biography of the Later Han Dynasty clearly records: "Since ancient times, book contracts have mostly used bamboo slips as book contracts, and those who use silks have called them paper. Expensive and simple, inconvenient for people. Rennai created this idea, using bark, hemp head, our cloth and fishing net as paper. " It was published in the first year of Yuan Xing (A.D. 105), and the emperor's ability was superior, so he didn't have to worry about it, so it was called' Cai Hou Paper' internationally. "For a long time, people thought that Cai Lun, the eunuch of the Eastern Han Dynasty, invented papermaking according to the Book of Were Han. However, according to the archaeological discoveries in Shaanxi, Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia, Gansu and other places since the 1950s, there were rough hemp paper that was not used for writing and thin, soft and slippery hemp paper for making maps in the Western Han Dynasty. Therefore, some scholars think that Cai Lun is only an important technical innovator in the history of papermaking. He expanded the source of raw materials, popularized papermaking, and produced writing paper. But at that time, the quality of paper was still relatively rough, so paper was mainly used by middle and lower intellectuals in the Eastern Han Dynasty, and bamboo slips and silks were still regarded as orthodox writing materials. In the Western Jin Dynasty, that is, the 3rd century, paper was widely used as a writing material. There is a record in Zuo Si's "Examination of the Three Capitals": "Luoyang is the most expensive place for luxury houses. "It shows that the upper and lower classes of society used paper instead of silk at that time, and a large number of books were copied with paper. Due to the continuous improvement of papermaking technology, the expansion of papermaking raw materials, the improvement of paper texture and the increase of varieties, the first year of Yuanxing in the Eastern Jin Dynasty (AD 403) ordered: "There was no paper in ancient times, and simplicity was not the main thing. "Today, all people who use simplicity use yellow paper." A decree of the ruler established the status of paper and promoted its popularization. Paper completely replaced bamboo slips and silk. Printing was invented in the mid-Tang Dynasty, when handwritten copying could not meet the needs of communication, and paper provided the most important material conditions for printing.

Papermaking spread from China to West Asia and East Asia, and then to other parts of the world. The invention and spread of papermaking and the use of paper have promoted the inheritance and spread of culture, promoted the exchange of ideas and different cultures, and promoted the development of civilization. Francis Bacon, a British scientist, spoke highly of the contribution of China's four great inventions (including papermaking and printing) to world science and culture. He said: "They have changed the whole face and state of world things, resulting in countless changes; It seems that there is no empire, no religion, and no outstanding person has had greater power and influence on the cause of mankind than these mechanical discoveries. "