- Paper can be made using 3 sugar cane stalks found near river banks and swamps in Minecraft.
- Players can also find paper inside loot structures like shipwrecks, villages, and stronghold libraries.
- Paper is essential for crafting books, maps, fireworks, cartography tables and more.
Apart from exploring your world, planting crops, and battling various monsters, there is also a crafting aspect to Minecraft. This way, you can obtain most blocks and items renewably. One of the crafting ingredients seen frequently is paper. Without this simple item, you cannot really play the game properly, unless you’re trying to speedrun it. In this guide, we’ll cover ways in which you can get and farm paper and what use it really has in Minecraft.
The Minecraft Paper Recipe (Quick View)
Paper in Minecraft is an item used as an ingredient in several crafting recipes. Those recipes happen to be extremely important for both the early and late game. Therefore, players always find themselves looking for and crafting more paper in the game.
Ingredients Needed
The paper crafting recipe is fairly straightforward. All you need to obtain is at least 3x sugarcane and 1x Crafting Table. It’s a great idea to start gathering them in large quantities from the start. So keep reading below for some of the easiest ways to get sugarcane in Minecraft.
How to Craft Paper in Minecraft
You can not only craft paper in Minecraft, but you can also find it in various locations. Let’s first look at the method of making paper from scratch:
- Interact with the crafting table to open its UI.
- Fill the middle row with three sugarcanes, and you’ll see 3 units of paper on the right-hand cell.
- Drag and drop the paper to store it in your inventory.
We have tested this recipe in Minecraft 1.21 and all the versions that have been released recently. So, you don’t need to worry about any change in its recipe.
Where to Find Sugarcane Fast
Before you make paper in Minecraft, you need to find Sugarcane first. Fortunately, this is one of the most easily renewable crops in the game, and this is how you can get them.
Best Biomes for Sugarcane
Sugarcane grows naturally near water and is usually three or four blocks tall. It can generate in any biome in the Overworld, but you will mostly find sugar cane growing in the swamps and especially in the desert biomes.
Can you grow Sugarcane with Bonemeal?
No, you cannot grow sugarcane with Bonemeal and it’s a common misconception for the players. Sugarcane grows at a fixed rate, and the only way to get more of these faster is by building a farm. Also, if you were wondering, Bamboo cannot be used to make paper in Minecraft as well.
Wandering traders also have a chance to sell you sugar cane for one emerald. But, if you want this useful ingredient in bulk, you can automate the process by making a sugarcane farm in Minecraft. Apart from that, you will require a crafting table to bring everything together.
How to Find Paper in Minecraft
On the other hand, you can find paper when exploring your Minecraft world. It is commonly generated in the following structures’ chests:
- Shipwrecks: The Supply and Map chests can have around 1-10 pieces of paper
- Villages: The Cartographer’s chest can contain 1-5 units of paper
- Strongholds: The Library chest can have 2-7 units of paper
5 Essential Uses for Paper
Once you make paper in Minecraft, some of the most unique applications open up for you.
1. Books & Enchanting (The Power-up Path)
Books are essential in the early game as they allow you to make bookshelves. With at least 15 bookshelves around an enchanting table, you will be able to place Minecraft enchantments of the highest level on your gear. The crafting recipe for a book requires three pieces of paper and one leather.
2. Empty Maps
You can use these to map out your surroundings, get oriented more easily, and even make awesome custom art. If you would like to learn more about how to make a map in Minecraft, follow the linked guide. For this recipe, you will need eight pieces of paper and one compass in Minecraft.
There is a different recipe for the empty map in the Bedrock edition, which requires nine pieces of paper. You don’t need a compass on the Bedrock edition.
3. Cartography Table (The Explorer’s Path)
With a cartography table in Minecraft, you can modify maps. See the table below to learn what combining maps with different items gives you:
Item You Combine with a Map What You Get Paper Zoomed out map (one zoom level) Empty Map Copied map Glass Pane Locked map Compass Locator map (Bedrock Edition only)
Besides using the cartography table for your own needs, you can also use it for turning unemployed villagers into cartographers. Check out our guide on all villager jobs in Minecraft to learn more about cartographers. The recipe for this block in Minecraft requires two paper and four planks.
4. Firework Rockets (The Elytra Flight Path)
Paper is essential in crafting fireworks in Minecraft. They are used in the late game since you can boost yourself in the air with your Elytra in Minecraft equipped. For fireworks used for this purpose, you will need one piece of paper and 1-3 gunpowder.
On the other hand, if you want to use fireworks for their primary purpose in real life, you will need firework stars. These items make the fireworks explode and display an array of colors. Recipes for these fireworks include one piece of paper, 1 to 7 firework stars, and up to 3 gunpowder.
5. Banner Patterns & Aesthetics
If you’re looking for more design options on your banners, banner patterns can help you with that. They will display unique designs ready to be placed on a banner. Crafting a recipe for these items in Minecraft requires one piece of paper and one special item. Depending on the special item you use, the following banner patterns can be crafted:
Special Item Banner Pattern Creeper Head Banner Pattern Creeper Charge Oxeye Daisy Banner Pattern Flower Charge Wither Skeleton Skull Banner Pattern Skull Charge Enchanted Golden Apple Banner Pattern Thing Vines Banner Pattern Bordure Indented (Bedrock Edition only) Bricks Banner Pattern Field Masoned (Bedrock Edition only)
How to Farm Paper Sustainably
If you want infinite paper, build a sugarcane farm at your base. Not only can it give you lots of paper, but you also get sugar as a by-product. The farm requires dirt blocks, a few solid blocks, pistons, redstone dust, an observer, a hopper, a chest, and fifteen sugar canes. You can refer to our linked guide above to learn about the building process
A few tips on building this farm include placing lily pads on top of the water surface to walk over it without falling down. Furthermore, you can make zero-tick farms on bedrock, whereas you use an observer and a piston setup on the Java edition.
Many players get confused after using the new Crafter block to make paper automatically. If you pipe sugarcane directly into the Crafter, it may make sugar instead of paper. So, ensure that you lock the necessary slots in the crafter and leave the central 3 slots blank to make paper. The sugarcane farm, along with the Crafter setup, will help you farm paper sustainably.
Trading Paper for Emeralds: Is it worth it?
Paper in Minecraft is also applicable in trading with villagers. Cartographers and librarians on both versions of the game purchase paper for emeralds. The only difference is that librarian villagers on the Bedrock edition offer to buy paper definitely, whereas librarians on the Java edition have about a 66% chance to offer the paper trade.
So, yes, it is worth trading with the villagers for paper because you get a lot in exchange for a single emerald. And now you know everything about how to make paper in Minecraft, and what its uses are in the game. Have you found the most efficient way to make paper in Minecraft? Tell us in the comments below.
No. You can only craft paper with sugar cane. However, you can also find paper in a few different structures.
The most efficient way to make paper is by gathering a lot of sugar cane. Since the sugar cane farm is rather simple, you can set it up relatively early and therefore, be able to make a lot of paper efficiently. You can also visit biomes like deserts or swamps, where sugar cane generates more.
Unfortunately, no villager sells paper. Cartographers and librarians buy paper from you and give you emeralds in return. You can get paper only by crafting or finding it.
