PURPOSE: To lighten the labor required for packaging operation and permit packages to be reduced in volume by a method wherein a hopper is provided with an entrance opening for forcing the fabric or the like to be packaged thereinto and an exit opening for forcing the same out therefrom and with an air outlet passage extending from the exit to the entrance opening in its interior.

CONSTITUTION: A packaging material 5 is attached around the outer periphery of a hopper 1 and its ends are sealed into the form of a bag. When fabric M is forced into the hopper 1 from its entrance opening 2, the fabric M is moved toward its exit opening 3 while being compressed. Since the air in the hopper 1 and in the end part of the bag-like packaging material 5 is displaced by the fabric moving forward and escaped from the side of the exit opening 3 through an air outlet passage 4 to the side of the entrance opening 2, no air compression resistance is created by forcing the fabric into the hopper. When a succeeding fabric M pushes a preceding fabric M to move it to a take-away conveyor 11, a pressing device 9 applies a pressing force to the outside of the packaging material 5 to further compress the fabric M so as to expel the air in the end part of the packaging material 5 from its unsealed rear part through the air outlet passage 4 to the outside. Thereafter, a heat cutter 7 seals the rear end of the bag and, at the same time, forms the front end of the succeeding bag and the packaging of the fabric M reduced in volume is completed for take-away.