How many words is a page?

“How many words is a page?” doesn’t have one fixed answer — it depends on font, size, spacing and margins. But there’s a standard baseline most teachers, editors and style guides use, and it’s accurate enough to plan a document by.

How many words per page?

The baseline nearly everyone uses is 12pt Times New Roman (or a similar font), with one-inch margins on an A4 or US Letter page. At that setting:

• Single-spaced: about 500 words per page
• 1.5 line spacing: about 330 words per page
• Double-spaced: about 250 words per page

Double-spacing is the norm for many essays and manuscripts because it’s easier to read and leaves room for comments. It doesn’t change the content, just how much white space surrounds it — which is why tutors and editors increasingly set a word count rather than a page count.

How many pages is 1,000 words?

Here’s the same baseline worked out for common word counts:

Working the other way, multiply the number of pages by 500 for single-spaced or 250 for double-spaced:

How many words is an A4 page, a page and a half or an A5 page?

Using the same planning figures (12pt, 2.54 cm margins, about 500 words single-spaced and 250 double-spaced per A4 page):

• A4 page in Word: about 500 words is the usual planning figure. A page of solid text with no headings or paragraph breaks fits more: about 680 words in Times New Roman 12pt (see our measurements below).
• A5 page: A5 is half the size of A4 (148 x 210 mm against 210 x 297 mm), but with the same 2.54 cm margins its text area is only about 40% of an A4 page’s, so it holds about 200 words single-spaced, not 250. Narrower margins, which A5 booklets often use, fit more. This is our estimate from the page areas, not a measured figure.
• Times New Roman or Arial: Times New Roman fits more. In our test at 12pt, a full single-spaced A4 page held about 680 words in Times New Roman and about 620 in Arial, roughly one word in ten more.
• Handwritten pages (school exercise books, exam answers) vary far too much with handwriting size to give one figure. Count the words on one of your own full pages and multiply.

Words to pages calculator

Type a word count (or a page count) to see how many pages (or words) it comes to. “Planning estimate” uses the 500 / 330 / 250 words-per-page rule above; the font options use the full-page figures we measured below, for solid text with no headings.

We measured it: words per page by font and size

The 500 and 250 figures are rules of thumb, so we tested how many words really fit. We set the same passage of ordinary written prose in each font, size and spacing on A4 paper with 2.54 cm (1 inch) margins, then counted the words on every full page:

Two things stand out. First, a page of unbroken text holds more than the rule of thumb: about 680 words single-spaced and 340 double-spaced in Times New Roman 12pt. The 500 and 250 figures leave room for what real documents have — paragraph breaks and indents, headings, quotations, a title and lists — which is why they work well for planning. Second, switching from Times New Roman to Arial at the same size costs you roughly one word in ten, and dropping from 12pt to 11pt adds about a fifth more words per page.

How we tested: the passage averaged 4.9 letters per word, like most everyday writing, with no extra space between paragraphs. We used fonts with exactly the same letter widths as Times New Roman, Arial and Calibri (Liberation Serif, Liberation Sans and Carlito). Word’s own default style also adds space after every paragraph and a little extra line spacing, so an unchanged new Word document fits fewer words than these figures. On US Letter paper, expect a similar number, give or take a few per cent.

Why your page count might be different

• Your software’s default font. The 500/250 figures assume 12pt. Microsoft changed the default font in Word from Calibri to Aptos (the rollout began in 2023), and both Word and Google Docs typically start at 11pt rather than 12pt, so an unchanged document usually fits noticeably more words per page than the table suggests.
• The font itself. At the same point size, Arial, Verdana and Georgia run wider than Times New Roman, so fewer words fit on a line.
• Margins. Narrower margins fit more words; wider ones fewer.
• Paper size. A4 (used in the UK and most of the world) is a little taller and narrower than US Letter, but the difference in words per page is small.
• Layout. Headings, bullet points, block quotes, tables, images, a title page and short dialogue lines all take up more space per word than solid paragraphs.

None of that makes the baseline wrong — it’s still the right way to plan a document before you’ve written it. If a strict page limit is on the line, check the real document in its final font and layout. Saving it as a PDF fixes the layout so the page count can’t shift on someone else’s computer — see how to convert Word to PDF.

How long should different documents be?

Most of these documents are really governed by a word count convention rather than pages. Here’s what’s typical:

For essays, the assignment brief always wins. Many universities set a word count and allow a small margin either way, and some count footnotes or references differently — check your course handbook rather than relying on a general rule. For blog posts, length should follow what the topic genuinely needs: a quick answer shouldn’t be padded to look thorough, and a broad topic usually needs real depth.

How long is a 1,000, 2,000 or 3,000-word essay?

A 1,000-word essay is about 2 pages single-spaced or 4 pages double-spaced, and a 2,000-word essay is about 4 pages single-spaced or 8 double-spaced, at 12pt Times New Roman with standard 2.54cm margins. The table covers the common essay lengths, using the same 500, 330 and 250 words-per-page figures as the rest of this guide. A title page, headings and the reference list add pages without adding to most word counts.

How to split it up. A workable plan gives about a tenth of the words to the introduction and a tenth to the conclusion, and shares the rest between body sections of 200 to 350 words, each making one point. For 1,000 words that is roughly a 100-word introduction, three or four body sections and a 100-word conclusion; for 2,000 words, a 200-word introduction, four to six body sections and a 200-word conclusion. Paragraph counts assume 150 to 200 words a paragraph, which suits most undergraduate writing. Treat this as a starting plan: the brief and your argument decide the real shape.

Check the count your course uses. Word processors disagree about footnotes, headers, text boxes and the reference list, and so do universities. Count in the program you submit from, or paste the text into the Word Counter for words, characters and reading time; nothing leaves your browser.

How long does it take to read 1,000 words?

About 4 minutes to read silently, about 5½ minutes to read out loud, 7½ to 8 minutes to give as a talk, and well over an hour to write out by hand. The silent reading figure comes from the largest review of reading-speed research so far, which pooled 190 studies with nearly 18,000 adult readers and found an average of 238 words a minute for non-fiction (260 for fiction, 183 when reading aloud).¹ Speaking time uses 130 words a minute, a comfortable pace for a talk, and handwriting uses 68 letters a minute, about 14 words. Typing it out takes just under 20 minutes at the average keyboard speed of about 52 words a minute (see the average typing speed for what counts as fast).

Everyone reads at a different speed: a slow reader at about 175 words a minute takes a third longer than the table shows, and a fast one at 300 words a minute about a fifth less. Technical writing, small print and anything you need to remember all slow people down. These are the same speeds Altto’s Word Counter uses, so you can paste in your own text and see its reading, speaking and handwriting time straight away, and switch each one to slow or fast in its settings.

1. Brysbaert, M. (2019). How many words do we read per minute? A review and meta-analysis of reading rate. Journal of Memory and Language, 109, 104047. doi.org/10.1016/j.jml.2019.104047

How many words is a 5-minute speech?

Most people speak at around 120–150 words per minute when presenting. Using the 130 words per minute that Altto’s Word Counter uses for speaking time:

• 1-minute speech: about 130 words
• 3-minute speech: about 390 words
• 5-minute speech: about 650 words
• 10-minute speech: about 1,300 words

Nervous speakers tend to speed up, so if you have a strict time slot, aim slightly under and rehearse out loud with a timer.

How to check your word count

• Microsoft Word: the live word count is shown in the status bar at the bottom of the window; for the full breakdown, go to Review → Word Count.
• Google Docs: Tools → Word count, or press Ctrl+Shift+C (⌘+Shift+C on a Mac). Tick “Display word count while typing” to keep it on screen.
• Apple Pages: View → Show Word Count.
• Anywhere else: paste your text into Altto’s Word Counter. It shows words, characters, sentences and paragraphs, an estimated page count (double-spaced, at 250 words per page), reading time at about 200 words per minute and speaking time at about 130, all updating as you type.

Different programs can disagree by a few words, mostly over hyphenated phrases, numbers and symbols, so if a limit is strict, use whichever counter your teacher or publisher uses. Altto’s counter runs entirely in your browser, so unpublished drafts are never uploaded. It can also check text against character limits for social posts and SEO titles, and switch its case — see text case styles explained.

Common questions

Sources

Where the default-font facts in this guide come from:

• Microsoft Design — A change of typeface: Microsoft’s new default font has arrived (Aptos replacing Calibri as the default in Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook)
• Google Docs Editors Help — Change how paragraphs & fonts look (changing and saving your default text style)