They manufactured for writing purposes a thick, coarse paper from the leaves of the agave plant by a process of maceration and pressure.

An Aztec book closely resembles one of our quarto volumes.

It is made of a single sheet, twelve to fifteen inches wide, and often sixty or seventy feet long, and is not rolled, but folded either in squares or zigzags in such a manner that on opening it there are two pages exposed to view.
Thin wooden boards are fastened to each of the outer leaves, so that the whole presents as neat an appearance, remarks Peter Martyr, as if it had come from the shop of a skilful bookbinder.

They also covered buildings, tapestries, and scrolls of parchment with these devices, and for trifling transactions were familiar with the use of _slates_ of soft stone from which the figures could readily be erased with water.[11-1] What is still more astonishing, there is reason to believe, in some instances, their figures were not painted, but actually _printed_ with movable blocks of wood on which the symbols were carved in relief, though this was probably confined to those intended for ornament only.
In these records we discern something higher than a mere symbolic notation.

They contain the germ of a phonetic alphabet, and represent sounds of spoken language.