How to use the words to pages calculator
- Pick the font, font size and line spacing your document uses.
- Enter your word count in Words to pages to see how many pages it fills.
- Or enter a page requirement in Pages to words to see how many words a paper of that length needs.
Both boxes use the same page setup, so changing the font updates both results at once.
How many words per page: the assumptions
There is no official number of words per page, so every converter has to assume one. These are the figures used here for 12 pt text, 1-inch margins on US Letter paper, and ordinary paragraphs without headings:
| Font (12 pt) | Single | 1.5 lines | Double |
|---|---|---|---|
| Times New Roman | 500 | 333 | 250 |
| Arial | 450 | 300 | 225 |
| Georgia | 460 | 307 | 230 |
| Verdana | 370 | 247 | 185 |
| Courier New | 340 | 227 | 170 |
- Starting point: 500 words on a single-spaced page of 12 pt Times New Roman. This is a widely used rule of thumb, not a measured standard.
- Other fonts: scaled from Times New Roman by how wide each font sets the same English paragraph and how tall its lines are, measured from the font files’ own glyph widths and line heights, then rounded to the nearest 10.
- Spacing: 1.5 lines divides the single-spaced figure by 1.5, double spacing by 2.
- Font size: words per page × (12 ÷ size)², because a bigger size means fewer characters per line and fewer lines per page. 11 pt fits about 19% more than 12 pt; 14 pt about 27% less.
Words to pages chart
12 pt Times New Roman, 1-inch margins:
| Words | Single-spaced | Double-spaced |
|---|---|---|
| 250 | 0.5 pages | 1 page |
| 500 | 1 page | 2 pages |
| 750 | 1.5 pages | 3 pages |
| 1,000 | 2 pages | 4 pages |
| 1,500 | 3 pages | 6 pages |
| 2,000 | 4 pages | 8 pages |
| 2,500 | 5 pages | 10 pages |
| 3,000 | 6 pages | 12 pages |
| 5,000 | 10 pages | 20 pages |
So 1,500 words is about 6 pages double-spaced, and 3,000 words about 12. For a 5 page paper double spaced, plan on roughly 1,250 words.
Pages to words: word counts for page requirements
Turning a page requirement into a word target is the same sum in reverse: multiply the pages by the words per page. A 3-page double-spaced essay in 12 pt Times New Roman is about 750 words, and a 10-page one about 2,500. If your instructor sets both a page count and a word count, the word count is the more precise of the two.
Why your page count may differ
- Headings, title pages, block quotes and reference lists take space without adding many words.
- Every new paragraph leaves part of a line empty, so text with many short paragraphs or dialogue fills more pages.
- Long words fit fewer per line than short ones; technical writing usually runs to more pages than the same number of everyday words.
- A4 paper and different margins change the space on each page. The figures here assume US Letter with 1-inch margins.
For a talk instead of a paper, the words to time calculator converts the same word count into speaking minutes.