Just the other day, I overheard our design team discussing how to fit text on a page. One wished for less, the other wished there were standards for how much text they’d receive in general. This discussion illustrated a common problem that has some simple solutions. Making text fit a page is a challenge that affects almost every project we do. And, fitting copy to a page is made easier with experience and years as a professional writer and editor — but some of our clients faced with this challenge don’t have such experience to rely on. So, I thought I’d share a few tips ...

First — even for a professional writer, there are few things more intimidating than a blank page without a plan! So, when I’m writing something for a client, one of the first things I do is determine how many words are needed and get a sense of my purpose and space. Common sense points to the fact that text needs will be different for a brochure, a blog post, a book, and a magazine article. There are no rules of thumb. But, after years of experience I know that a double-spaced typed page with 12-point text and 1-inch margins generally fits about 250 words, that most single page magazine articles are between 600 and 900 words, and that it is rare that any piece I’m working on will be more than 1,500 words.

But, each project is different and a lot is determined by the structure. So, designers are a wonderful resource for such information. Some of the things that factor in include — planned design elements, font and font size, and goals for the piece and its space. Before beginning, I almost always ask the art director about their vision and how many words they have space for. If there is no one to ask, I’ll count words in a line, and lines in a paragraph for something similar to give myself an estimate of length.

When something is written before the space is planned, its a simple case of editing and shaping to fit that space. Word count is one tool to help me know where to trim. If I’m writing on a computer, most word processing programs have a feature that tracks the word count. But, if the text is already in the layout, the simplest way is to count how many lines or words need to be removed. Then I look for words to trim or change, aiming my edits to pull text up a line.

Published: 04-15-2011