Paper cultural relics are fragile and therefore very few are preserved today. The older the paper, the rare they are. Paper relics are very precious and the preservation and research on paper relics is of great significance. Routine analysis of the properties of paper usually damages them. Noninvasive and microinvasive methods need to be more fully explored. This article introduces the physical properties of paper, fiber morphology and the papermaking process. Scanning electron microscopy and other analytical methods are described. Noninvasive and minimally invasive analysis methods on paper cultural relics can yield information about composition, the period when they were made, the process of manufacture, the degree of pounding of the pulp and the fiber ratios.