Strips were bound together with hemp, silk, or leather and used to make a kind of folding book, called jiǎncè or jiǎndú.

The earliest surviving examples of wood and bamboo slips date from the 5th century BC during the Warring States period.

Bamboo and wooden strips were the standard writing material during the Han dynasty and excavated examples have been found in abundance.

The custom of interring books made of the durable bamboo strips in royal tombs has preserved many works in their original form through the centuries.

An important early find was the Jizhong discovery in 279 AD in a tomb of a king of Wei, though the original recovered strips have since disappeared.