If you’ve ever found yourself mid-survival run, staring at an empty cartography table or trying to craft your first enchanted book, you’ve probably asked: how do i get paper in Minecraft? It’s one of the most underrated basic resources, yet it unlocks everything from wayfinding maps to name tags, bookshelves, and even fireworks for elytra travel. New players often skip over paper farming early on, only to hit a wall when they need dozens of sheets for late-game builds or utility items. I’ve spent hundreds of hours in both vanilla and modded survival worlds, so I’ve tested every way to get paper, from basic crafting to fully automatic farms that spit out stacks of it in minutes.
How Do I Get Paper in Minecraft: Basic Crafting Method for Vanilla Survival
The standard, most reliable way to get paper in unmodded Minecraft is crafting it with sugar cane, and this method works across all survival worlds, no special items or mods required. You’ll first need a 3x3 crafting table, not just your inventory’s 2x2 grid, because the recipe calls for three items in a horizontal line. Place three sugar cane stalks in any horizontal row of the crafting grid, and you’ll get three pieces of paper immediately.
Sugar cane grows exclusively on grass, dirt, sand, podzol, or moss blocks that are directly adjacent to a water source, in any overworld biome. Swamp biomes have the highest natural spawn rate for sugar cane, so if you’re struggling to find your first few stalks, head to the nearest swamp and you’ll likely find dozens growing along the water’s edge. You only need to break the top 2 blocks of a fully grown 3-block sugar cane stalk to harvest it sustainably, because the bottom block will keep regrowing new stalks every few minutes, so you never have to replant.
If you’re playing in creative mode, you don’t need to craft paper at all. You can find it in the decorations or items tab of your creative inventory, or search for “paper” in the search bar to pull it up instantly. This is perfect if you’re testing build ideas that use bookshelves, maps, or banner patterns and don’t want to go through the farming process.
Alternative Ways to Get Paper Without Farming Sugar Cane
If you don’t have time to find and farm sugar cane to make paper, these alternative methods will answer how do i get paper in Minecraft without planting a single stalk. The easiest option for early game players is looting chests in generated structures, which often have paper as a common drop. You don’t need any special tools to loot these chests, just enough gear to defend yourself from any mobs that spawn in the structure.
Stronghold library chests have the highest chance of giving you stacks of paper at once, often alongside books and enchanted books that are perfect for early enchanting setups. Other structures with paper in their chests include shipwreck supply chests (15% chance for 1-10 sheets), desert temple chests, jungle temple chests, and cartographer villager chests in villages. If you spawn near a village, you can also check novice librarian trades, as they have a 50% chance to sell 24 sheets of paper for 1 emerald, which is a great deal if you have extra emeralds from mining or other trades.
If you’re playing on a multiplayer server, many communities have public resource farms that include automatic paper farms you can use for free. Just make sure to check the server rules or ask an admin before taking resources from public farms, to avoid breaking any community guidelines. Some servers also have admin shops where you can buy paper for in-game currency if you don’t want to farm it yourself.
Building a Low-Effort Automatic Paper Farm for Unlimited Supplies
If you plan to use a lot of paper for enchanting, map making, or villager trading, building a small automatic farm will save you hours of running around looking for sugar cane. You don’t need any complicated redstone knowledge to build a basic version that produces enough paper for casual play, and it only takes about 10 minutes to set up with basic materials you probably already have in your inventory.
For the no-redstone beginner paper farm, you’ll need:
- 10+ sugar cane stalks to plant
- 20+ blocks of sand, dirt, or grass (sandy blocks work best for faster placement near water)
- 1 bucket of water, or access to a natural water source
- 6+ blocks to build a low border around the farm to stop water from flowing out
To build it, dig a 1x8 trench in the ground, fill it with water, and place sand blocks on both sides of the trench so every sand block is directly adjacent to water. Plant one sugar cane stalk on each sand block, and build a low border around the edges to stop you from accidentally trampling the stalks or spilling water. All you have to do after that is walk through the farm every 10-15 minutes and break the top two blocks of each stalk to collect your sugar cane, which you can turn into paper immediately. This basic farm produces enough paper for most casual players in less than 30 minutes of total playtime, so you won’t have to search for sugar cane ever again.
If you’re comfortable with basic redstone, you can upgrade this farm with observers facing each sugar cane stalk, connected to pistons that automatically push the top two blocks off when they grow fully. Add a water stream or hopper minecart under the farm to collect the dropped sugar cane and send it to a chest, so you don’t even have to harvest it manually. This fully automatic version can produce multiple stacks of paper per hour, which is perfect if you’re trading paper for emeralds or building a large library for your base.
Pro Tips for Using Paper Efficiently in Your World
Once you have a steady supply of paper, you want to make sure you’re not wasting it on unnecessary items, especially if you’re still in early survival and don’t have a farm set up yet. The highest priority uses for paper are maps for exploring, books for enchanting, and trades for emeralds, so save most of your supply for those uses unless you have a surplus.
Always keep at least 3 sheets of paper in your inventory when exploring new areas, so you can make a map if you get lost and need to mark your base location. You can expand a basic level 0 map by combining it with 8 more paper in a crafting table, up to level 4, which covers a 2048x2048 block area, perfect for mapping out large biomes or entire server worlds. If you’re making bookshelves for a max level enchanting table, you’ll need 3 pieces of paper per book, 3 books per bookshelf, and 15 bookshelves total for a max level enchantment setup, so aim to farm at least 135 sheets of paper to build the full setup.
If you’re playing modded Minecraft, some popular mods add alternative recipes for paper, like using bamboo or wood pulp, but these only work if the mod is installed on your single player world or multiplayer server. Always check your server’s mod list if you can’t craft paper with sugar cane, to see if there’s an alternative recipe you should use instead. You can also use paper to make banner patterns, fireworks for elytra travel, and name tags to rename your pets or gear, so it’s worth keeping a small stack in your ender chest for random uses when you’re out exploring.
Getting paper doesn't have to be a chore, whether you're a new player just figuring out crafting recipes or a veteran looking to stock up for a big build. At the end of the day, the fastest way depends on your playstyle: you can craft it from sugar cane, loot it from structures, trade for it with villagers, or build an automatic farm to get unlimited supplies. Next time you're wondering how do i get paper in Minecraft, you'll have every method at your fingertips to get exactly what you need, no matter what mode you're playing in. Don't forget to test out the low-effort farm first if you plan to use a lot of paper for enchanting or map making, it'll save you hours of running around looking for sugar cane later on.