What is a Standard Page?
A standard page (Normseite in German) is a standardized text unit: 1800 characters including spaces. That's roughly 30 lines of 60 characters each – an A4 page with generous margins and Courier font.
Sounds antiquated? It is. And that's exactly what makes it fascinating.
The Typewriter Era
The standard page dates back to when manuscripts were typed on typewriters. In the 1920s and 30s, a standard emerged in German publishing:
- 60 keystrokes per line (the typical line length of a typewriter)
- 30 lines per page (with reasonable spacing)
- Result: 1800 keystrokes = 1 standard page
Why these numbers? Because they were practical. A mechanical typewriter with default settings produced exactly this format. Editors could stack manuscripts and estimate length at a glance.
Why Not Just Count Words?
In English, word count is the standard. "This novel is 80,000 words" – that's how American authors pitch their books.
In German, this doesn't work as well:
English: "The house is big." (4 words)
German: "Das Haus ist groß." (4 words)
But also:
English: "accountability" (1 word, 14 characters)
German: "Rechenschaftspflicht" (1 word, 20 characters)
German words are longer on average. Compound words like "Bundesausbildungsförderungsgesetz" (Federal Education Assistance Act) distort word counts. Character counting is more neutral – a character is a character.
What Gets Counted?
With standard pages, everything counts:
- ✅ Letters
- ✅ Numbers
- ✅ Punctuation
- ✅ Spaces (this is the important part!)
Why spaces? Because they required the same keystroke on a typewriter as any letter. A space was physical work – or at least it used to be.
Standard Pages in Practice
For Authors: Publishing Contracts
When a publisher says "we expect a manuscript of 400 standard pages," that means:
400 × 1800 = 720,000 characters
÷ 6 (typical word length + space) ≈ 120,000 words
That's an average novel. A thriller often has 250-350 standard pages, a historical novel can have 600+.
For Translators: Fee Calculation
VG Wort (Germany's collecting society for authors) and most translator contracts bill in standard pages:
- Fiction: approx. €20-25 per standard page
- Non-fiction: approx. €25-35 per standard page
- Highly specialized: €40 and up
For a 400-page novel, a translator can expect €8,000-10,000. (Minus taxes, of course.)
For Editors: Workload Estimation
An editor needs about 6-10 standard pages per hour for proofreading, only 3-5 pages for developmental editing. This makes calculation simple:
Manuscript: 300 standard pages
Editing: 300 ÷ 4 = 75 working hours
The Digital Transformation
In word processors, there are no mechanical line lengths anymore. Word, Scrivener, and other programs can format anything – and the standard page seems obsolete.
But it survives. Why?
- Comparability: A novel stays a novel, whether formatted in Arial 11 or Times 12
- Tradition: Contracts, associations, and industry standards change slowly
- Fairness: Character counting disadvantages no one – neither authors with short nor long words
How to Create a Standard Page
If you actually want to submit a manuscript in classic standard page format:
Microsoft Word / LibreOffice:
- Font: Courier New
- Size: 12 pt
- Line spacing: 1.5 or double
- Margins: top/bottom 2.5 cm, left/right 3 cm
- Alignment: justified or left-aligned
Or simpler: Count the characters (including spaces) and divide by 1800.
Even simpler: Hermes 3000 can automatically generate PDF and DOCX files in standard page layout – perfect for publisher submissions.
Conclusion: A Relic with a Future
The standard page is a remnant from the analog world – but a useful one. It provides an objective, language-independent measure for text volume.
While word counts vary (depending on how you count "e-mail"), character counts remain constant. And as long as publishers, translators, and authors need a common currency, the standard page will persist.
1800 characters. 30 lines. 60 keystrokes.
Some things are just fine the way they are.