Apart from exploring your world, planting crops, and battling various monsters, there is also a crafting aspect of 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.
What is Paper in Minecraft
Paper in Minecraft is an item used as an ingredient in several crafting recipes. Those recipes happen to be extremely important for both early and late game. Therefore, players always find themselves looking for and crafting more paper in the game. It’s a great idea to start gathering it in large quantities from the start.
How to Obtain Paper in Minecraft
You can not only craft paper in Minecraft, but you can also find it in various locations. Let’s look at both options, and you can choose the one that suits you most.
Minecraft Paper: Crafting Recipe
The paper crafting recipe is fairly straightforward. All you need to obtain is at least three pieces of sugar cane. How do you get that?
Sugar cane generates 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. 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 sugar cane farm in Minecraft.
Once you have collected sugar cane, place them in any row on your crafting table to get three pieces of paper. You can select and move the paper to your inventory.
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 – two out of three chests can generate paper
- Villages – chest in the cartographer’s building
- Strongholds – library chests
Best Uses of Paper in Minecraft
For Crafting Recipes
1. Book
Books are essential in the early game as they allow you to make bookshelves. With at least 15 bookshelves around an enchanting table, you wil 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 Map
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
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. Fireworks
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
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 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 |
| Oxeye Daisy | Banner Pattern Flower |
| Wither Skeleton Skull | Banner Pattern Skull |
| Enchanted Golden Apple | Banner Pattern Thing |
| Vines | Banner Pattern Bordure Indented (Bedrock Edition only) |
| Bricks | Banner Pattern Field Masoned (Bedrock Edition only) |
Trading with Villagers
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.
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.
