WordBench guide
Words Per Page in 12pt Font
In 12-point Times New Roman or Courier with 1-inch margins, the standard manuscript-format convention that publishers use is about 250 words per page double-spaced, or roughly 500 words single-spaced. That comes from about 25 lines of roughly 60 characters, close to 10 words, per line. Other fonts, sizes, or margins will shift the count.
Count your own text
The table below gives the general answer. Paste your own text here to get the exact number for it.
Publishers and literary agents needed a way to estimate how many printed pages a manuscript would fill without laying it out first, so the industry settled on a standard: 12-point type, either Times New Roman or Courier, 1-inch margins, and double-spaced lines. At that size and spacing, a page holds about 25 lines, each averaging roughly 60 characters, or about 10 words, which works out to about 250 words per double-spaced page.
Single-spacing roughly doubles how many lines fit on the same page, so the same font and margins hold about 500 words single-spaced. That is the number worth using for an essay, a report, or anything else set with single line spacing rather than submitted as a manuscript.
Paste your draft into the counter above to get its exact word count first; page estimates only make sense once you know the real total.
Then divide: a 1,500-word short piece runs about 6 pages double-spaced or 3 pages single-spaced at 12pt. A 5,000-word chapter runs about 20 pages double-spaced or 10 single-spaced. The table below covers more lengths.
Words to estimated pages, 12pt Times New Roman, 1-inch margins
Pages are the word count divided by 250 for double spacing and by 500 for single spacing.
| Words | Double-spaced pages | Single-spaced pages |
|---|---|---|
| 250 | 1 | 0.5 |
| 500 | 2 | 1 |
| 750 | 3 | 1.5 |
| 1,000 | 4 | 2 |
| 1,500 | 6 | 3 |
| 2,000 | 8 | 4 |
| 2,500 | 10 | 5 |
| 3,000 | 12 | 6 |
| 5,000 | 20 | 10 |
| 10,000 | 40 | 20 |
| 50,000 | 200 | 100 |
What fits on a 12pt page, double and single spaced
The manuscript convention behind both figures, measure by measure. Single spacing doubles the lines on the page and changes nothing else.
| Per page | Double-spaced | Single-spaced |
|---|---|---|
| Font and size | 12pt Times New Roman or Courier | 12pt Times New Roman or Courier |
| Margins | 1 inch | 1 inch |
| Lines | About 25 | About 50 |
| Characters per line | About 60 | About 60 |
| Words per line | About 10 | About 10 |
| Words | About 250 | About 500 |
| Pages per 1,000 words | 4 | 2 |
Lines times words per line: 25 × 10 = 250 and 50 × 10 = 500. Other fonts are left out on purpose: this guide has no verified figures for them, so set your document in its real font and check the page count it reports.
Frequently asked questions
Does this figure apply to fonts other than Times New Roman or Courier? Not reliably. Arial, Calibri, and other fonts have different character widths, so a page will hold a different number of words at the same 12-point size. This guide only has verified figures for the standard Times New Roman or Courier manuscript setup; for anything else, the accurate approach is to check your own formatted document rather than apply this number.
Does this figure apply to fonts other than Times New Roman or Courier?
Not reliably. Arial, Calibri, and other fonts have different character widths, so a page will hold a different number of words at the same 12-point size. This guide only has verified figures for the standard Times New Roman or Courier manuscript setup; for anything else, the accurate approach is to check your own formatted document rather than apply this number.
Why do publishers use double-spacing instead of just counting words?
Double-spacing dates back to typewritten manuscripts, where editors needed room between lines to mark up corrections by hand. It remains the standard for manuscript submissions today, so page estimates for that use case are conventionally based on double-spaced text.
How many pages is a 1,000 word essay?
About 4 pages double-spaced or 2 pages single-spaced, in 12pt Times New Roman with 1-inch margins. See the full table above for other lengths.
Does the word counter above calculate pages for me?
No. The counter above reports live word, character, and reading-time counts. Page counts are a separate manual estimate using the standard 250-words double-spaced or 500-words single-spaced per page convention described on this page.
Sources
The counting rules behind every figure on this page are written out on the methodology page, including the ones that are conventions rather than measurements.