Calculate book page count using word count

Wondering how many Word pages equal a book page? You can easily calculate book page count using the word count from your Word document. We’ll explain two easy methods to calculate book page count: 1) use one of our simple formulas as a book page count calculator, or 2) use our InDesign template to experiment with book trim size and type size to accurately determine a page count for books. Use whichever method is easiest for you.

Calculate book page count using your word count

You’ll use the word count in your Word document to calculate book page count. First of all, find your word count in Word by opening your document and looking at the bottom left of your screen:

Once you know your word count, follow one of our two methods below to estimate your page count.

Method 1: Use our formulas

We’ve typeset many books and therefore know how to calculate the number of words that fit on an average book page. Our formulas are based on book trim size, typeface, and type size. Here are the steps to using our formulas:

Choose your book’s trim size

The trim size of your book dictates approximately how many words fit on one page, so start by choosing a trim size. Some popular trim sizes for books are:

Fiction – 5″ × 8″ or 5.5″ × 8.5″
Nonfiction – 6″ × 9″

What about trim sizes for larger format books? Look at any book and you’ll see that the text never goes to the edges of the pages. It’s all contained within the margins, forming a text block. Most larger format books use the same size text blocks as regular fiction and nonfiction books so that they’re easy to read. For a larger format book, use the 6″ × 9″ formula to calculate book page count.

Formulas to calculate book page count

Find the trim size of your book below, then use the formula for the type size you envision for your book. We created the formulas by setting 10,000 words in Minion (a commonly used serif typeface that comes with InDesign), and using the page margins recommended in Book Design Made Simple (0.75″ on all sides except 0.85″ at the top).

To calculate the page count for a 5″ × 8″ book:

10 pt type – divide your word count by 400
11 pt type – divide your word count by 350
12 pt type – divide your word count by 300

To calculate the page count for a 5.5″ × 8.5″ book:

10 pt type – divide your word count by 475
11 pt type – divide your word count by 425
12 pt type – divide your word count by 350

To calculate the page count for a 6″ × 9″ book:

10 pt type – divide your word count by 600
11 pt type – divide your word count by 500
12 pt type – divide your word count by 425

Calculate the number of pages in your front and back matter

There are probably some pages that are not included in your word count, such as pages in your front and back matter. Look through the following list of front and back matter pages and make a note of the number of pages you’ll require for your front and back matter:

Half title, title page, copyright page, dedication, quote or epigraph, contents, list of illustrations, foreword, preface, acknowledgements, introduction, appendix(es), endnotes, glossary, bibliography, references, index(es).

The image below from Book Design Made Simple explains the order of pages for your front and back matter.

This excerpt from pages 24 and 25 of Book Design Made Simple should help you estimate the length of your front and back matter.

Calculate the number of pages your images will require

In addition to text, you may also include illustrations, photos, diagrams, charts, and tables in your book. An easy way to estimate the number of pages your images will require is to count them according to how much space they’ll use. For example:

5 full-page images = 5 pages
20 half-page images = 10 pages
4 quarter-page images = 1 page
Total pages required for images: 16 pages

Calculate extra pages based on number of chapters and parts/sections

Chapters don’t usually begin at the top of a page, nor do they usually end at the bottom of a page. Therefore you should allow half a page extra for each chapter in your book. For example, if your book has 14 chapters, add 7 pages to your page count.

If your book is divided into parts or sections, you’ll probably add a part or section divider page (followed by a blank) between each part or section. So for each part or section in your book, add 2 pages to your book page count.

Calculate your book page count

Add together the following totals to get the final page count for your book:

Number of pages for word count (from formulas above): _______
Number of pages for front and back matter: ________
Number of pages for images: ________
Number of pages for chapters and part/section dividers: ________

Total number of pages estimated for your book: ________

#Indieauthors, need to calculate your #book page count using your manuscript's word count? We explain two methods: using a simple math formula or our #InDesign template. https://goo.gl/Dfy8cm Click To Tweet

Method 2: Use our InDesign template

You can estimate your page count the same way we calculated the formulas listed above—by using your book’s trim size, typeface, and type size in an actual InDesign document. Of course, you’ll need InDesign to use this template. If you don’t have InDesign, you can download it for a free one-week trial or use it at your local library.

Download our InDesign template by clicking here:
InDesign Template for Estimating Page Count

This template is set to the specifications we guide you through in Book Design Made Simple (i.e., trim size 5.5″ × 8.5″, tx paragraph style with Minion Regular, 11 pt type size with 14 pt leading). And the template includes the first 10,000 words of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.

Set the trim size and type specs to whatever you wish (see instructions below), and see how many pages the text runs to. Then use the following formula to calculate the average number of words per page:

10,000 divided by number of pages = words per page

Change the trim size and type specs to suit

Experiment with our InDesign template to get an accurate page count with whatever trim size and type specs you choose. Here are some suggestions for changes you can make:

Change the trim size: First click Layout>Margins and Columns, then check the Enable Layout Adjustment Box at the bottom left. Click OK. This will ensure that the text frames stay the same size as the margins, regardless of how large or small the pages are.

Click File>Document Setup to open the Document Setup dialog box. Choose your new trim size by changing the numbers in the Width and Height boxes, then click OK.

Your pages will now have the new trim size. Note that the margins are the same distance from the edges of the pages as they were before. As a result, the size of your text frames will have changed, causing your text to reflow and your page count to change.

Change the type specs: Double-click the tx paragraph style in your Paragraph Styles panel to open the Paragraph Style Options dialog box. Select Basic Character Formats on the left as shown below. Change the Font Family, Size, and Leading (linespacing) by clicking the arrows to the right of those drop-down menus and choosing alternatives.

Make sure the Preview box at the bottom left is checked. That way you’ll see all the changes you’re making to the text in real time. Once you click OK, InDesign will finalize those changes causing your text to reflow and your page count to change.

Calculate book page count … done!

Now that you know the average number of words per page in your book, you can calculate the page count with a little arithmetic. Simply divide the total word count from your Word document by the number of words per page.

total number of words in your Word document divided by number of words per book page = your page count so far

Then add in all the extra pages for your front matter, back matter, images, chapter titles, and part/section openers (see Method 1, above).

We hope one of these two methods works quickly and easily for you! There are lots of reasons why you might need to estimate the page count for books using the word count. Now you know two sure-fire ways to calculate book page count.

If you have any questions or problems, please let us know in the comments below. Happy designing!

Book Design Made Simple. You can do it yourself.

Comments

Carmin Fella says
April 16, 2019 at 6:57 am

I am a first-time author and am just about ready to self publish on Amazon Kindle. I would like paperbacks available as well as ebooks – but am now worried that my $9.99 price point won’t cover my costs on the paperbacks…you see, my word count is 122,500 with much dialogue. My local print shop is printing my Advanced Reader Copies on 8.5×11 to reduce costs.

Help??

- Glenna Collett says
  April 17, 2019 at 4:45 am
  
  Hello Carmin,
  Your advance reader copies need to look as professional and complete as possible so that your readers will be convinced that this is an actual book. We advise against the 8.5 x 11″ copies. Before getting ARCs, you should have the book designed and laid out by a professional (unless you’re doing it yourself with help from Book Design Made Simple, of course), complete with a front cover and spine, though you may leave the back cover blank, as this is where your readers’ reviews will go. Then get just your ARCs printed by Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing. You will probably find that it’s less expensive than printing at the local shop, plus you’ll see exactly what your book is going to look like and how much each copy is going to cost. (When you print on demand, every copy costs the same, no matter the volume. See our blog post on that topic here.)
  Your words are important, but the presentation is equally important, especially if you want to get good reviews.
  Good luck with your first venture into book publishing!
  Glenna
  
stephen says
August 9, 2018 at 2:07 pm

Hi Glenna Thanks for the info. When calculating the ‘word’ count – would that be soley the text of the stoiry? (less the front and back portions etc. I ask because the word count usually lists ALL words. I am finishing a novella and don’t want to exceed 40,000 words

thanks

- Glenna Collett says
  August 9, 2018 at 4:38 pm
  
  Hi Stephen,
  
  Whenever anyone talks about word count, they mean the body of the story. You can figure out the front matter simply by counting the pages you want to have there.
  
  In order to get Word to count only the story text, you will need to put that text into a separate document, or you can highlight the story text only and Word will count only the highlighted words.
  
  Best of luck with your story.
  
  Glenna
  
Michelle Carvalho says
March 15, 2018 at 12:15 pm

I can’t be more grateful for finding this article. This is one area that is so important but seems to be left out of all of the major self-publishing platforms. I have been at this for over a week, maybe more and have become so discouraged. It was easier writing novels than trying to set them up for pod. Most blogs show the calculation process for standard 5×8 and so on but not one of them shares a formula for smaller books. I am trying to print 15,000 and 30,000 word books on a 4×6 .. I really wish I could figure our the formula for determining the page count. Each platform asks for a page count instead of providing an embedded calculator to aid in completing the form. You can’t get past the screen to generate a pdf template for a book cover without knowing this. It’s like a vicious circle….. I’ll try some of what you have written here. If you know anything that I might be missing please let me know. Thanks so much!

Michelle

- Fiona Raven says
  March 15, 2018 at 9:28 pm
  
  Hi Michelle, it’s definitely a challenge to calculate your page count when your book has a trim size smaller than 5″ x 8″. I used the InDesign template provided in this blog post to estimate your page count, and here’s what I did:
  
  I changed the trim size in the InDesign template to 4″ x 6″. I noticed that the preset margins look too big for this small trim size, so I reduced all the margins to 0.625″ except the inside margin (the gutter or spine edge), which I kept at 0.75″ to allow for perfect binding. There are 10,000 words in the template, and the type is 11 pt with generous leading or linespacing. At the 4″ x 6″ trim size, 10,000 words ran to 52 pages (that’s 192 words per page). So 15,000 words would run to 288 pages, and 30,000 words would run to 576 pages.
  
  If you want to calculate any other word count for a 4″ x 6″ trim size, just remember there are approximately 192 words per page using 11 pt type and the margins noted above.
  
  I hope this helps, and thanks for your great question!
  
Lyle Litzenberger says
January 10, 2018 at 10:11 am

For our project, this blog’s timing is perfect! The page count is much more of a concern with respect to this book than the last. This one is still a work in progress so your Method #1 was really helpful. I suspect that having a solid page estimate will also be a handy bit of knowledge to have, during the lead-up to the printing process. Thank you for another great blog!
M & L

- Glenna Collett says
  January 10, 2018 at 4:32 pm
  
  Hi M&L, our most faithful readers,
  Thanks for your comments. Fiona did most of the work on this one, and her 2 methods do work perfectly. You get the point exactly, which is to be able to plan for printing costs. Glad to be able to help out!
  Glenna