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I found some nice replies dealing with word counting, but my question is slightly different.

I want to know if it's possible to establish a relation between word count and the number of pages in an average formatted book, so I can have an idea of how many pages my manuscript probably has so far.

Of course this should be just an average, not an exact answer. Basically, I want to know, in average, how many words a page has.

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Psicofrenia
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3 Answers3

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An easy, highly variable way:

  1. Pick up a book that is formatted approximately as you think yours might be.
  2. Pick five random pages in the book. Do not involve your eyes in picking the pages.
  3. Count the number of words per page, and compute the mean.
  4. Divide your word count by that mean.

A more reliable way, involving somewhat more work:

  1. Pick up a book that is formatted approximately as you think yours might be.
  2. Type five pages of that book into your word processor.
  3. Adjust the following settings until they appear on your screen as closely as you can manage like the book you're using as a reference
    • Font (face and size)
    • Line spacing
    • Paragraph spacing
    • Page margins
    • Space between scenes
    • Extra space at the top of a chapter
  4. Format your book using the same settings.
Dale Hartley Emery
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Really? It's not possible. If you write a book full of dialogue, like theatre, or a book without blank typo, you won't have the same wordcount for the same number of page.

For a manuscript, in general, it's not the word count that you have to take. It's the character count.

You can make an average for your book, already. You take some pages, you see the word count, you divide (?) by the number of pages, you ave an average for one of Your pages. And after, you see.

But I really don't think you can make a good average with other books, for yours.

Lauren-Clear-Monica-Ipsum
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Lexaelle
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It seems that the average word count for a page varies from 250 to 400, in normal books.

Most sites I saw, indicated a media of 400 as acceptable, but you can raise it to reflect most condensed books. In that way, a good way to calculate the probably page count of a manuscript is to divide it by 400.

This answer was given after some more intense Internet research, where these pages arouse:

Psicofrenia
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