Grammage ream developed because such a size can easily be cut into sixteen 6 by book sized sheets without significant waste. Early newsprint presses printed sheets in size, and so the ream dimensions for newsprint became , with 500 sheets to a ream. Newsprint was made from ground wood pulp, and ground wood hanging paper (wallpaper) was made on newsprint machines. Newsprint was used as wrapping paper, and the first paper bags were made from newsprint. The newsprint ream standard also became the standard for packaging papers, even though in packaging papers kraft pulp rather than ground wood was used for
Toilet paper human history dates back to the 6th century AD, in early medieval China. In 589 AD the scholar-official Yan Zhitui (531–591) wrote about the use of toilet paper: During the later Tang dynasty (618–907 AD), an Arab traveller to China in the year 851 AD remarked: During the early 14th century, it was recorded that in modern-day Zhejiang province alone there was an annual manufacturing of toilet paper amounting to ten million packages of 1,000 to 10,000 sheets of toilet paper each. During the Ming dynasty (1368–1644 AD), it was recorded in 1393 that an annual supply of 720,000 sheets