How to make books in minecraft

Want to know how to make a Book in Minecraft? Books are very important, as you will need them to enchant your armour and weapons with various effects. You can also make pretty bookshelves to spruce up your home, if you aren’t interested in becoming an all-powerful wizard.

This guide will walk you through everything that you need to know to make a Book in Minecraft, including how to get Paper and Leather, which you will need.

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You can craft Books very early in Minecraft, as you only need a few simple ingredients. To make a Book, you need a piece of Leather and 3 pieces of Paper.

When you have the ingredients necessary, head to a Crafting Table and place the ingredients into the grid. These can be placed in any order, such as:

If you need more help getting Leather and Paper, check the section below for tips.

How to get Leather in Minecraft

Leather is one of the most common items in Minecraft. You can get Leather by killing Cows, which you will probably do when looking for food on your first night.

It isn’t guaranteed that Cows will drop Leather when they die, so keep hunting until you find some.

How to get Paper in Minecraft

Unlike Leather, Paper isn't easy to find naturally in the world. It can spawn in chests in Villages, Shipwrecks, and Strongholds, but they aren't a guaranteed spawn and you would need to find one of these locations first. Fortunately, you can craft Paper very easily using Sugar Cane.

Sugar Cane can be found along the edges of water, so look for lakes and rivers as you explore. When you’ve got some Sugar Cane, you can use it to make Paper by crafting in the following pattern:

When you have Paper, you can combine it with Sugar Cane to make a Book, or with a Compass to make a Map.

How to use Books in Minecraft

If you want to enchant your gear in Minecraft, you need a Book. You can make an Enchanting Table by combining a Book with Diamonds and Obsidian in the following order:

Enchanting Tables allow you to place enchantments on most items. However, there are some combinations that require an Enchanted Book.

For example, to get the Sharpness enchantment on an Axe, you need to enchant a Book with Sharpness and then combine it with your Axe in an Anvil.

To enchant a Book, simply pop it on an Enchanting Table and choose the enchantment that you want.

How to make Bookshelves in Minecraft

If you want to access higher level enchantments, you need to surround your Enchanting Table with Bookshelves. These can be made by combining Books and Wooden Planks in the following order:

Each Bookshelf increases the level of Enchantments that you can access by 2, so you need to make a total of 15 to unlock level 30 Enchantments, which is the highest level available.

If you aren’t looking to enchant your items, Books are still useful. Take some to a Village and look for Librarian Villagers who are willing to trade. There is a chance that they will offer an Emerald in exchange for 4 Books. If you want to increase the amount of Emeralds you get from the Librarian, you can use a Book to make a Book and Quill. You only need to sell two of these to get an Emerald, making the Book and Quill twice as valuable as a normal Book.

How to make a Book and Quill in Minecraft

To make a Book and Quill, you need to combine a Book, Feather, and an Ink Sac at a Crafting Table. These can be placed in any shape, so there's no need to worry about the order.

Ink Sacs can be obtained by killing a Squid, which are commonly found in the ocean. You can get a Feather by killing a Chicken, which are very common in the Overworld, just like Cows. Both of these are passive Mobs, so they will not turn hostile when you attack them.

Once you've made your Book and Quill, you can take it to a Librarian to sell it. However, these aren't only included as a trading item. You can also use a Book and Quill as an ingame notepad. Whether you want to keep a diary, record some coordinates, or even write a fun story in Minecraft, it's all possible with a Book and Quill.

That’s all the information you will need to make a Book in Minecraft. If you want to dive further into Minecraft magic, check out our Minecraft Potions guide. You can also check out our best Minecraft Texture Packs and our best Minecraft Shaders list to give your Books a whole new look!

Books are simple to make, but the ingredients can be frustrating to track down. Once you have the materials, it's easy to set up your own farm so you never run out of paper and leather. Now let's get started so you can start planning out the library.

1. 1

   Gather sugar cane. Sugar cane is a green reed that grows near bodies of water. It can be difficult to find on some worlds, but if you follow a coastline you should come across it. Break it with your bare hands or any tool to pick it up.

   • Sugar cane does not grow next to frozen water. Look for it in warm biomes.

2. 2

   Start a sugar cane farm (recommended). Since sugar cane can be annoying to find, save some to plant before you turn it all into paper. Placing a piece of sugar cane on the ground will plant it, but it will only grow taller in the following conditions:

   • It must be planted on dirt, sand, grass, or podzol.[1] X Research source Go to source
   • There must be at least one water block adjacent to the ground it is planted on.[2] X Research source Go to source
   • Note — to harvest the cane, just wait until it grows taller and break the top blocks. If you leave the lowest cane block it will keep growing.

3. 3

   Turn three cane into paper. Fill one row of a crafting table with sugar cane (three in total). This makes three sheets of paper, which is enough to make one book.

4. 4

   Hunt for leather. Cows are usually not difficult to find, while horses spawn only in plains or savannah. Each one killed will drop 0 to 2 units of leather.[3] X Research source Go to source You'll need one piece of leather for each book.

   • You can also make leather out of four rabbit hides, or find it occasionally by fishing.
   • If you want a steady source of leather, grow wheat and use the harvested stalks to lure cows into an enclosure. Offer a pair of cows more wheat to breed them whenever you're getting low on animals.

5. 5

   Combine paper and leather to make a book. Place leather in one square and paper in three squares, anywhere in the crafting area. This makes one book.[4] X Research source Go to source

1. 1

   Check your version number. These instructions assume you are playing Minecraft Pocket Edition version 0.12.1 or later. If you are playing an earlier version, be aware of the following changes:[5] X Research source Go to source

   • Before 0.12.1, books do not require leather to craft, but they also have no use in the game.
   • Before 0.3.0, books do not exist.

2. 2

   Search for sugar cane. Sugar cane is a green reed that grows near bodies of water. You can harvest it with your bare hands. Once you find some, consider planting your own back at your base so you have a permanent paper supply. Sugar cane grows on sand or dirt adjacent to water.

   • If you don't have enough cane to make the amount of paper you'd like, you can make it grow faster with bone meal.[6] X Research source Go to source

3. 3

   Turn three sugar cane into paper. Tap your crafting table and select the Paper recipe in the Decorations menu.[7] X Research source Go to source This will turn three sugar cane into three paper.

4. 4

   Kill cows for leather. Each cow killed will drop 0, 1, or 2 pieces of leather. If you have Pocket Edition 0.11 or later, you can find it by fishing instead, but it is much less common there.[8] X Research source Go to source

5. 5

   Combine paper and leather into a book. The Book is another item in the Decorations section of the crafting table menu.

1. 1

   Combine books with wooden planks to make bookshelves. Combine six planks (top and bottom rows) with three books (center row) to make a bookshelf. Many players craft these blocks just for style, but they can also improve your enchantment results.

2. 2

   Make an enchantment table. You'll need four blocks of obsidian (full bottom row and center square), two diamonds (left and right of center), and one book (top center). Using an enchantment table allows you to spend experience on special abilities for your tools, weapon, and armor.

   • To make obsidian, divert flowing water onto lava. You will need a diamond pickaxe to mine the obsidian.
   • Using enchanted books in minecraft allows a user to get random enchantments from an enchantment table.[9] X Research source Go to source
   • It allows a user to add more enchantments to previously enchanted items through the use of an anvil.[10] X Research source Go to source
   • Enchanted books can be acquired by the user through trading with librarian villagers.[11] X Research source Go to source

3. 3

   Craft a book and quill. Place a book, ink sac, and feather anywhere in the crafting area to make a book and quill. Using this item opens an interface where you can type in a long message.

   • This recipe is not available in pocket edition, or in some older console versions.
   • To get feathers, kill chickens. To get ink sacs, kill squid.

• Question

  How do I write a book?

  Craft a book first. Then, go into the crafting table and put a feather next to it. It should give you a book and quill. Just left click it.

• Question

  What about an Xbox 360?

  Same way. All recipes remain the same across all platforms.

• Question

  Where do you find sugar cane seed?

  There is no seed, but you can find sugar cane growing in warm, sandy places near water.

This article was co-authored by Zac Churchill. Zac Churchill is from Davidson, North Carolina, and currently attends Tufts University. He has played Minecraft for over eight years and has extensive knowledge on how to play Minecraft and how the game has changed over the different versions. Specifically, Zac has expert experience in survival worlds, large builds on creative mode, and server design/upkeep. This article has been viewed 230,915 times.

Co-authors: 19

Updated: August 15, 2022

Views: 230,915

Categories: Minecraft Crafting

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• "This was great. I'm new to Minecraft and I don't know all of the crafting recipes. I end up forgetting a recipe for a bow or something like that, so it helped me a lot because I wanted to make a book and I never made one."

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