A bolt is a piece of cloth woven on a loom or created by a knitting machine, as it is processed, stored or marketed. Consequently, its dimensions are highly variable – flexible and dependent upon the manufacturing, machinery, quantity, size, thickness and quality of the product. It is a unit used in manufacturing, transport and inventory. It is also used as a descriptor for wallpaper, which uses different fabrication machinery. Being encompassing, it is by its nature a generic and ambiguous term of convenience and context, used to describe fabric and wallpaper.

Textile manufacturing is about converting fiber into yarn, yarn into fabric, and finally, the fabric into clothing and other useful products. At every stage, production activity is managed by unique batches. When it comes to fabric, a set of bolts or rolls forms a batch, representing the production.

The yarn is processed by knitting or weaving, which turns the yarn into cloth. The machine used for weaving is the loom. and knitting is another method of cloth manufacturing.

Boltsare the rolls of cloth manufactured by a loom or knitting machine, which moves through subsequent processes of textile finishing.

Looms are equipped with devices that can measure the length of the bolt during manufacturing on the machine itself.

Cloth merchant were marking the end of bolts with notations. This practice is continued in the industry to avoid mixing.

After fabric inspection, the bolts are layered manually or fabric-spreading machines for relaxing and cutting with patterns.

For more information, see Pattern; Ready-made garment