The codex provides considerable advantages over other book formats:

Compactness
Sturdiness
Economic use of materials by using both sides (recto and verso)
Ease of reference (A codex accommodates random access, as opposed to a scroll,
which uses sequential access.)[7]

The change from rolls to codices roughly coincides with the transition from papyrus
to parchment as the preferred writing material, but the two developments are
unconnected. In fact, any combination of codices and scrolls with papyrus and
parchment is technically feasible and common in the historical record.[8]

The codex began to replace the scroll almost as soon as it was invented. In Egypt,
by the fifth century, the codex outnumbered the scroll by ten to one based on
surviving examples. By the sixth century, the scroll had almost vanished as a
medium for literature.[9]

Technically, even modern paperbacks are codices, but publishers and scholars
reserve the term for manuscript (hand-written) books produced from Late antiquity
until the Middle Ages. The scholarly study of these manuscripts from the point of
view of the bookbinding craft is called codicology. The study of ancient documents
in general is called paleography.