In China, an early book form of vertical bamboo or wooden strips bound together developed, with the early invention of paper, into the paper scroll. To improve access to their content, such scrolls, with wide paper sheets glued together consecutively, were folded into an accordion-style form. This form is still in regular use for religious works, and therefore often referred to as “sūtra-style"

With another early invention, xylographic printing, the thin sheets were individually folded, stacked, and held together using paper twists and thread, with sheets made from the same material used as covers. That form became the standard East Asian “thread-bound book.” Several chapters would be a physical volume, several volumes, sometimes kept together in cases made of boards covered with cloth, constituted a book. With the development of highly automated print presses in the 20th century, this form lost its dominance to the codex, but it remains in specialized use.