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Words per book page, by trim and type size

By Lukas · version 1, measured 28 October 2026

Kernsetzer set the same sample texts at eight trim sizes and three type sizes, and counted the words on each page. At 11 pt, a 6 × 9 in page of fiction holds about 400 words and a 5 × 8 in page about 320, well above the 250 a page most page-count rules assume. The full table, English and German, fiction and non-fiction, is below and as CSV and JSON.

English, fiction, with dialogue

English, non-fiction, long paragraphs

German, fiction, with dialogue

German, non-fiction, long paragraphs

How it was measured

Kernsetzer sets its pages with Typst, and the same typesetting runs from the command line as kernsetzer render. On 28 October 2026 it set two sample texts per language at every trim above, each at 10, 11 and 12 pt, with the Classic theme, its margins and its font, Libertinus Serif. The “fiction” text has every paragraph of a novel, short lines of dialogue included; the “non-fiction” text has only the long paragraphs. Both come from the test manuscripts in Kernsetzer’s repository, written for the app’s tests, not taken from anyone’s book. The log post How many words fit on a book page? tells the story behind the numbers.

The figures are words per page of running text. Each chapter adds about one and a half pages on top, for its opening and its partly empty last page; the page count calculator adds that, and a size between two measured ones is taken halfway between them.

What they don’t cover

The figures hold for the Classic theme. Another font with other margins can move them by 10 to 20 %: a wider font such as Georgia, bigger margins or looser line spacing give fewer words a page, a narrower font more. Pictures, tables, poems and part title pages aren’t in them. They rest on two sample texts per language, so a novel with more dialogue than the sample fits a little less on a page, one with less a little more.

The files

One row per language, kind of text, trim and type size, 96 rows in all: words-per-page.csv and words-per-page.json. The columns are language (en, de), text (fiction, nonfiction), trim, width_mm, height_mm, type_size_pt and words_per_page. The JSON carries the same rows with the method and the version.

License: CC BY 4.0. Use the figures in an article, a tool or a book; name Kernsetzer and link this page. Cite as: Kernsetzer, “Words per book page by trim size and type size”, version 1, measured 28 October 2026, https://kernsetzer.app/data/words-per-page.

Version 1 (28 October 2026) is the first measurement. When the typesetting changes enough to move the figures, a new version replaces it here, with the date and what changed, and the old files stay available.

The same figures are behind the page count calculator and the guide to trim sizes. If you use them somewhere, I’d like to hear about it.