If you’ve spent any amount of time exploring Enshrouded’s vast open world, you’ve probably run into a point where you need paper to progress, but have no clue where to find or make it. New players often overlook this seemingly small resource, but it unlocks some of the most useful quality of life features in the game, from labeled chests to hidden loot maps. Most guides skip over the exact prerequisites you need to unlock the recipe, leaving you stuck grinding random resources for hours. We’re breaking down everything you need to know, including how to make paper in Enshrouded, farm materials fast, and avoid common mistakes that waste your time.
What You Need Before You Can Make Paper in Enshrouded
Before you can even see the paper recipe in your crafting menu, you have to tick a few key boxes first, and most new players miss these steps entirely. You can't craft paper until you rescue the Carpenter NPC from the Forgotten Vault located just west of the starter base. The vault is guarded by a few low-level Shroud enemies, so you can clear it as early as level 3, no need to wait for better gear. This is the most common roadblock for players who are trying to figure out how to make paper in Enshrouded, since the recipe doesn’t show up in any other crafting station.
Once you’ve brought the Carpenter back to your base, you’ll also need to unlock the Grinder station. The Grinder recipe unlocks automatically once the Carpenter is set up, and you only need 10 stone, 5 flint, and 2 wood to build it. The Grinder turns raw wood into wood pulp, one of the two core ingredients for paper. You don't need to upgrade the Carpenter's workbench to craft paper, the base level workbench works perfectly fine, so you don’t have to spend extra resources on upgrades first.
The last prerequisite is a source of clean water. You can either build a water collector (which requires 5 wood, 3 string, and 1 clay) to generate water passively, or use empty iron buckets to scoop water from any freshwater lake or river on the map. I prefer using buckets early on, since you don’t have to wait for the water collector to generate resources, and there’s a large lake just 2 minutes north of the starter base.
Step-by-Step Process to Craft Paper
Once you have all your prerequisites sorted, crafting paper is incredibly straightforward, and you can make hundreds of pieces in just a few minutes if you have enough materials stockpiled. First, head out with your axe and farm as much raw wood as you can carry. You don’t need any special type of wood, any tree in the overworld works, and you can get 3-5 pieces of wood per full-grown tree. If you’re making paper for a specific quest that needs 20 pieces, you only need 10 wood and 4 buckets of water total, which takes less than 5 minutes to gather.
Bring the wood back to your Grinder, and place it in the input slot. 1 piece of wood makes 2 wood pulp, so you only need 1 wood per 2 pieces of paper, which means you don’t have to spend hours farming trees to get a big stock of paper. If you have leftover wood from building your base, you can use that too, no need to farm extra if you already have a stockpile.
Next, grab your empty buckets and head to the nearest freshwater source. Fill all your buckets in one trip, since each piece of paper only needs 1 unit of water, and each bucket holds 5 units of water. Once you have your wood pulp and water, head to the Carpenter’s workbench, select the paper recipe, and craft as much as you need. The recipe takes 2 seconds per piece, so you can make 100 pieces in under 4 minutes total.
That’s really all there is to it. I used to overcomplicate this when I first started playing, thinking I needed a fancy upgraded workbench or rare materials, but it’s one of the simplest mid-game recipes to unlock once you know the prerequisites. If you avoid the mistakes we cover next, you’ll be able to make paper in Enshrouded faster than you can farm most other mid-game resources.
Common Mistakes to Avoid When Farming for Paper Materials
Even though crafting paper is simple, there are a handful of common mistakes that new players make that waste hours of their time, and we’ve made all of them at one point or another. Avoid these pitfalls to get your paper stockpile built as fast as possible:
- Using refined wood instead of raw wood for wood pulp: Refined wood is better used for building upgraded base structures and high-tier furniture, raw wood works just as well and is far easier to farm in bulk.
- Wasting time farming wood in the Shroud: Trees in the overworld respawn every 10 in-game minutes and don't expose you to Shroud corruption or high-level enemies that can one-shot low-level players.
- Forgetting to stock up on empty buckets: You can hold up to 10 buckets at a time, so fill them all in one trip to cut down on travel time back and forth to the lake.
- Storing paper in multiple separate chests: Keep all your paper in a chest next to the Carpenter's bench so you don't accidentally craft more than you need when you’re in a hurry for a quest item.
Never cut down the small sapling trees around your base if you want a permanent, fast wood source. Those saplings grow into full harvestable trees in just 10 in-game minutes, so leaving them intact means you never have to travel more than a few steps to get all the wood you need for paper or building. I used to cut all saplings down to clear space when I first started, and I regretted it when I had to travel 10 minutes away to farm wood for a quest that needed 30 pieces of paper.
Wood pulp doesn't expire or take up extra storage space, so you can farm 100+ pieces at once when you have extra time, and store it next to the Carpenter’s bench for whenever you need to make more paper. This saves you a ton of time when you need paper last minute for a quest or to make a loot map.
Best Uses for Paper in Enshrouded
A lot of new players write off paper as a useless decor resource, but it’s actually one of the most versatile mid-game items you can craft, and it unlocks a ton of features that make playing Enshrouded way less frustrating. The most obvious use is custom signs, which let you label chests, mark paths through the Shroud, or leave notes for teammates if you’re playing multiplayer. I can’t tell you how much time my team saved once we started putting signs on all our chests, instead of rummaging through 10 different chests looking for iron ingots before a boss fight. If you’re playing on a public server, you can also use paper signs to claim areas of your base so other players don’t build over your storage or crafting stations.
Paper is also a required material for a lot of NPC side quests, especially quests from the Alchemist and Hunter NPCs. These quests reward you with rare crafting recipes, skill points, and exclusive gear that you can’t get anywhere else, so having a stock of paper on hand means you can turn in these quests as soon as you pick them up, instead of having to stop and grind materials first. I once had to delay a quest that gave me a legendary bow recipe for 2 hours because I didn’t have 15 pieces of paper on hand, and I never made that mistake again.
The hidden loot maps you craft with paper are the fastest way to get rare legendary gear early in the game. These maps mark the location of hidden chests all across the map, and they often have legendary weapons, armor, and crafting materials that would take you 10+ hours to find through normal exploration. I found a legendary fire axe from a loot map when I was level 5, and it made clearing Shroud areas 10 times easier for the next 10 hours of gameplay.
You can also use paper to craft wall decor, scrolls that give you temporary buffs, and even custom banners for your base. It’s a small resource, but it adds so much personality and functionality to your playthrough that it’s worth unlocking as early as possible. Once you know how to make paper in Enshrouded, you’ll wonder how you ever played without it.
Paper is one of those underrated resources that makes a huge difference in how enjoyable your Enshrouded playthrough is, and it’s far easier to craft than most players realize. You don’t need late-game gear or rare materials to make it, just a few simple prerequisites and 10 minutes of farming to get a stockpile that will last you for hours. Now that you know how to make paper in Enshrouded, you can unlock all the useful features it offers, from labeled chests to rare loot maps, without wasting time grinding the wrong materials or missing key prerequisites. Next time you’re working on upgrading your base, take 10 minutes to stock up on paper, you won’t regret it.