how to make paper in minecraft

To make paper in Minecraft, you only need sugar cane and a crafting table. You can’t change the recipe: it’s always 3 sugar cane for 3 paper.

How to Make Paper in Minecraft

(Quick Scoop style guide)

The ultra-short version

Find or farm sugar cane.
Place 3 sugar cane in a horizontal row in a crafting table (any row).
Take the 3 paper that appear in the output slot.

Step-by-step: crafting paper

1. Get sugar cane

Look for sugar cane growing next to water (rivers, oceans, lakes, swamps).

Break it to collect the item, then replant the bottom piece next to water to start a mini farm.

You need 3 sugar cane per craft, which gives 3 paper.

2. Make or place a crafting table

If you don’t have one, put 4 wood planks in a 2×2 grid in your inventory to craft a crafting table.

Place the crafting table on the ground and right‑click (or tap/use) it to open the 3×3 grid.

3. The exact paper recipe

Put 3 sugar cane in a straight horizontal row in the 3×3 crafting grid. It can be top, middle, or bottom row.

You’ll see 3 paper appear in the result slot. Move them to your inventory.

Think of it like laying three green sticks in a line; the game presses them into a strip of paper.

Other ways to get paper (beyond crafting)

Even though crafting is the main method, you can pick up paper in a few extra ways.

Chest loot: Paper can generate in certain structures’ chests (for example, some villages or other loot structures in various versions).

Villager gifts: With the Hero of the Village effect, villagers can sometimes throw you paper as a gift.

Trading: Librarian and cartographer villagers often buy paper for emeralds, which is a great way to turn a sugar cane farm into an emerald farm.

What paper is used for (and why it matters now)

Once you know how to make paper, you unlock a bunch of mid‑ and late‑game items:

Books: 3 paper + 1 leather → used for bookshelves and enchantment tables.

Maps and cartography table stuff: Paper is used to craft empty maps and to expand or clone maps with a cartography table.

Firework rockets: Paper + gunpowder → essential for Elytra boosted flight later on.

Banner patterns and other recipes: Some banner pattern recipes use paper plus a specific item.

Because Minecraft keeps getting small tweaks, but the core recipe has stayed the same up through recent guides in 2025, you can rely on this method for current Java and Bedrock versions.

Quick tips and mini-strategies

Build a sugar cane farm early: Plant cane along any water line near your base so you never run out of paper later.

Think “3 for 3”: Every 3 cane = 3 paper. That makes it easy to plan how big your farm needs to be for bookshelves, maps, or fireworks.

Use paper for emeralds: Trade stacks of paper to librarians and cartographers to gear up fast with emeralds and enchanted books.

Simple HTML table for your post

You asked for tables as HTML, so here’s a drop‑in crafting summary:

html

<table>
  <thead>
    <tr>
      <th>Step</th>
      <th>Action</th>
      <th>Details</th>
    </tr>
  </thead>
  <tbody>
    <tr>
      <td>1</td>
      <td>Gather sugar cane</td>
      <td>Find 3+ sugar cane growing next to water and harvest it.</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>2</td>
      <td>Open crafting table</td>
      <td>Place a crafting table and open the 3×3 crafting grid.</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>3</td>
      <td>Arrange ingredients</td>
      <td>Put 3 sugar cane in a straight horizontal row in any row of the grid.</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>4</td>
      <td>Collect paper</td>
      <td>Take the 3 paper from the output slot into your inventory.</td>
    </tr>
  </tbody>
</table>

Command shortcut (for Creative/testing)

If you’re just testing builds or playing in Creative and want instant paper:

Use the command:
/give @p minecraft:paper 64 to get a full stack instantly.

TL;DR: In survival, grow sugar cane, place 3 in a horizontal row in a crafting table, get 3 paper; then turn that paper into books, maps, fireworks, and villager trades for a big power spike.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.

how to make paper in minecraft