Graveyard Keeper 2 Paper Guide — How to Make Clean Paper

What does paper do in Graveyard Keeper 2?

“Paper” in Graveyard Keeper 2 is Clean Paper, and it is the fuel of the science economy: the tooltip captured for this guide reads “Can be decomposed on the Study Table to get 1 [blue science point]”, and blue points are what the Theology tab and other research branches demand. It is also a crafting ingredient — Science Kits and notebooks eat Clean Paper at the Writing Desk — and both walkthroughs checked for this page pick it up for the nun quest.

Two routes reach the same sheets, and they serve different moments of the save:

Step 1 — Unlock the Paper Press in the Theology tree

The press is gated behind research. Open Tech Tree → Theology and look for the Paper Press node in the book-writing cluster next to Books II — the checked save already shows it ticked green:

The Paper Press node sits in the Theology tab of the Tech Tree; the green check marks an already-unlocked save. Source frame: The Ginger Empire at 0:12.

Hovering the paper icon on that node spells out the whole deal in one tooltip — “Create: Clean Paper — Crafted at Paper Press” — plus the science hook this page keeps coming back to:

The tooltip confirms the station (Paper Press) and the payoff (decompose on the Study Table for a blue point). Source frame: The Ginger Empire at 0:14.

While you are waiting on the research, start the two inputs: Flax from your garden beds and Water from the well. Flax is the hungry one — the Flax item page covers planting and harvest yields — and both walkthroughs treat a stocked field as the real prerequisite of the paper line. The Theology tab itself spends blue and red points, so a detour through the tech tree guide tells you which branches feed it.

Step 2 — Mix Paper glop at the Formulation Bench

Paper starts as a slurry. Take your Flax and Water to the Formulation Bench in the Alchemy Lab and open the Paper glop recipe:

The captured panel reads 24 Flax and 2 Water against an output of 6 glop — double the community recipe of 12 Flax + 1 Water → 3, because the batch counter sits at 2. Source frame: The Ginger Empire at 0:29.

Each craft also shows the alchemy rune row next to its energy cost — the same essence logic the alchemy guide breaks down, so stock the runes before a long batch. The bench pays out quickly:

+9 Paper glop lands in one pickup — the wet intermediate every sheet starts as. Source frame: The Ginger Empire at 0:39.

The checked run does all of this by hand, and the narrator points out the bench “could be automated” — that is the automation guide’s territory once worker stations enter your save. For pricing a single craft down to ticks and energy, the production calculator is the tool for it.

Step 3 — Press Clean Paper in the Writing Basement

Carry the glop buckets to the Writing Basement — the house basement that also holds the Writing Desk. The Paper Press machine stands in the room:

The press is a physical station in the Writing Basement, not a menu entry — walk up and interact. Source frame: The Ginger Empire at 0:52.

Its window is where the mass production happens — glop bucket in, paper sheets out:

The checked run’s output counter reads 180 — a mass-production batch in a single window. Source frame: The Ginger Empire at 0:57.

+60 Clean Paper on one pickup mid-run — the sheets stack while you work. Source frame: The Ginger Empire at 1:05.

The payoff: inventory and Simple Chest packed with 50-stacks of Clean Paper, and the +180 banner closing the run. Source frame: The Ginger Empire at 1:17.

Graveyard Keeper 2 How to Mass Produce Paper (The Ginger Empire) — YouTube

Graveyard Keeper 2 How to Mass Produce Paper (The Ginger Empire)

Store the finished sheets near the desk that will eat them — chest placement decides how much walking a batch costs, which the layout guide covers in detail.

The leather scroll route at the Writing Desk

The press is not the only paper maker. Before it — or instead of it — the Writing Desk turns corpses into paper in two steps, which is the route the second walkthrough demonstrates:

1. Get Skin. Unlock the skin work in the Anatomy and alchemy tree; the skin research panel names the Autopsy Table I and II as the stations where “remove and replace skin” happens.
2. Craft Leather Scrolls at the Writing Desk. The captured recipe consumes 1 Skin per craft and yields 4 Leather Scroll.
3. Turn scrolls into Clean Paper at the same desk. The walkthrough narrates the step without capturing a recipe window; community wiki data prices it at 1 Leather Scroll → 6 Clean Paper — treat that ratio as unverified until you read your own craft card.

The skin panel inside the Anatomy and alchemy tree — the corpse side of the desk route. Source frame: Mathias Does Tech at 2:23.

1 Skin in, 4 Leather Scroll out — the input slot reads 2/1, two skins held and one consumed. Source frame: Mathias Does Tech at 2:33.

How To Get Writing Supplies in Graveyard Keeper 2 (Mathias Does Tech) — YouTube

How To Get Writing Supplies in Graveyard Keeper 2 (Mathias Does Tech)

The desk route burns corpses you may want for other lines, and its narrator never shows a big stack — the walkthrough that demonstrates it treats it as a supply fix, not a farm. For volume, the press wins, and its narrator says exactly that: the press makes paper “much, much, much faster”.

Ink: paper’s partner for the nun quest

Both walkthroughs pick these items up for the same quest — the nun asks for Ink and Paper, and the desk crafts the ink a window over from the scrolls:

Ash — the hard ingredient, in the narrator’s words — is “Crafted at: Crematorium I” per the tooltip. Source frame: Mathias Does Tech at 0:56.

The Ink recipe consumes 1 Ash, 1 Water and 1 Melted Fat per craft; the fat’s tooltip names the Distillation Cube as its station. Source frame: Mathias Does Tech at 1:06.

Common mistakes

• Hunting for a press you have not researched. The machine only becomes craftable after the Paper Press node in the Theology tab is bought — the tooltip is the checklist.
• Growing flax with no water plan. The glop recipe drinks from the well every batch; the checked run held 882 Water before pressing on.
• Using the desk route as a farm. Skin-to-scroll is a supply fix for the early game; 180-sheet batches only happen at the press.
• Decomposing the whole stock for science. Science Kits and notebooks also consume Clean Paper — spend the sheets on the Study Table only after the desk’s orders are covered.
• Trusting one screenshot as a recipe. The frame in this guide shows a batch of 2; read the live craft card, not the internet, before committing inputs.

Sources and verification

Steps, recipes and item tooltips were checked on 2026-10-11 against two independent English walkthroughs of the released game (patch 1.007 reference version):

• The Ginger Empire’s 84-second mass-produce paper run — the Theology unlock, the Formulation Bench glop recipe, the Writing Basement press and the 180-sheet batch with its chest payoff.
• Mathias Does Tech’s writing-supplies walkthrough — the Writing Desk, the skin-to-scroll route, and the Ink recipe with Ash, Water and Melted Fat.
• Referenced only for quest context, not embedded: The Ginger Empire’s paper-and-ink short (the nun quest asks for both).

The Leather Scroll → Clean Paper ratio (1 → 6), the Science Kit and notebook recipes, and the flax farming numbers are community wiki data from this site’s research notes rather than on-screen captures; the transcripts confirm the steps but not those figures. Recipe numbers shift with perks, mastery and patches — recheck the live craft card after any update.