5,000 words by line spacing and paper
| Line spacing | US Letter, 1 in margins | A4, 2.5 cm (the converter's default) | A5, 2.5 cm |
|---|---|---|---|
| Single | 10.5 | 10.0 | 25.3 |
| 1.5 | 15.7 | 15.0 | 37.9 |
| Double | 20.9 | 20.0 | 50.5 |
Times New Roman at 12 pt. The main words to pages converter opens on A4 with 2.5 cm margins, which is why it shows 20.0 where US Letter shows 20.9.
5,000 words in 7 fonts
| Font | 11 pt, Single | 12 pt, Single | 11 pt, Double | 12 pt, Double |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Arial | 9.7 | 11.5 | 19.3 | 22.9 |
| Calibri | 9.4 | 11.2 | 18.9 | 22.4 |
| Comic Sans MS | 12.4 | 14.8 | 24.9 | 29.6 |
| Courier | 12.8 | 15.2 | 25.6 | 30.5 |
| Garamond | 9.5 | 11.3 | 18.9 | 22.5 |
| Times New Roman | 8.8 | 10.5 | 17.6 | 20.9 |
| Verdana | 11.7 | 14.0 | 23.5 | 27.9 |
US Letter with 1-inch margins. Character widths and line heights come from the Capsize font metrics.
What 5,000 words looks like on the page
Double spaced on US Letter, 5,000 words fill 20 full pages and nearly all of the next, at 239 words a page.
The common rule of thumb, 250 words per double-spaced page and 500 per single-spaced one, gives 20.0 and 10.0 pages.
That rule matches A4 with 2.5 cm margins, where this model also counts 250 words per double-spaced page. A US Letter page with 1-inch margins leaves 377 cm² for text against 395 cm² on A4, 4.5% less, so it holds 239.
The font moves the count more than the paper does. At 12 pt double spaced on Letter, 5,000 words take 20.9 pages in Times New Roman and 30.5 in Courier.
For the Nebula Awards, the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association counts any story under 7,500 words as a short story, so 5,000 words is short-story length by that rule.
Source: SFWA Nebula Award rules
How long 5,000 words takes to read or say
| Reading silently at 200 words per minute | 25 min |
|---|---|
| Reading silently at 238 words per minute | 21 min |
| Reading silently at 300 words per minute | 17 min |
| Speaking at 100 words per minute | 50 min |
| Speaking at 130 words per minute | 38 min |
| Speaking at 160 words per minute | 31 min |
The paces are the words to minutes calculator's presets. 238 words per minute is the adult average for silent reading of non-fiction in Brysbaert (2019). Words to minutes calculator
Other word and page counts
- Fewer: 4,000 words
- All word counts
- Any other count, font or paper: words to pages converter