How Many Pages Is 1000 Words? (Single and Double Spaced)
How many pages is 1000 words? About 1.4 pages single-spaced or 2.8 double-spaced in 12-pt Times New Roman, plus a table from 500 to 5,000 words.
1000 words is about 1.4 pages single-spaced or 2.8 pages double-spaced, in 12-point Times New Roman on A4 paper with 1-inch margins. Those figures come from laying ordinary English prose out in Microsoft Word, and they're fewer pages than the often-quoted "2 pages single, 4 double". How many pages you actually get depends on the font, size, spacing and margins, so below you'll find each effect, a words-to-pages table and a way to check your own document.
On this page
How many pages is 1000 words? The quick answer
| Setting (1-inch margins) | Single-spaced | Double-spaced |
|---|---|---|
| Times New Roman 12 pt, A4 | 1.3 to 1.5 pages | 2.7 to 2.9 pages |
| Times New Roman 12 pt, US Letter | 1.4 to 1.5 pages | 2.8 to 3.0 pages |
| Arial 12 pt, A4 | 1.4 to 1.6 pages | 2.9 to 3.1 pages |
| Calibri 11 pt, A4 | 1.2 to 1.3 pages | 2.4 to 2.6 pages |
Each range covers two kinds of writing: everyday prose with shorter words, which packs more onto a page, and encyclopedia-style text with longer words, which fits less. Both samples used indented paragraphs of 100 to 120 words, with no headings.
That rule of thumb assumes about 500 words a page. It's a handy round number, but a plain single-spaced page of 12-point Times New Roman holds about 50 lines of 14 to 15 words, closer to 700 words. Headings, bullet lists, blank lines between paragraphs, wider margins or a bigger font all pull a real document down towards the round number.
What changes the number of pages
Here's how many words fit on one A4 page as each setting changes, starting from 12-point Times New Roman, single-spaced, with 1-inch margins:
| What you change | Words per page |
|---|---|
| Nothing (12-pt Times New Roman, single-spaced) | 690 to 760 |
| 11-pt Times New Roman | 820 to 900 |
| 12-pt Arial | 630 to 700 |
| 11-pt Calibri | 760 to 840 |
| 1.5 line spacing | 470 to 530 |
| Double spacing | 340 to 375 |
| 0.75-inch margins | 780 to 860 |
| 1.25-inch margins | 600 to 670 |
| A blank line between paragraphs | 635 to 700 |
A few patterns stand out. Dropping from 12 to 11 points adds about a fifth more words per page. Arial is wider than Times New Roman, so it fits fewer. US Letter paper holds about 4% fewer words than A4, because an A4 page is taller.
Content matters too. Dialogue, short paragraphs, lists and tables leave white space at the ends of lines, and technical writing full of long words fills lines faster, so treat any words per page figure as an estimate rather than a promise.
Words-to-pages table: 500 to 5,000 words
These estimates use the middle of the measured range for 12-point Times New Roman on A4 with 1-inch margins: about 724 words per single-spaced page and 357 per double-spaced page.
| Words | Single-spaced pages | Double-spaced pages |
|---|---|---|
| 500 | 0.7 | 1.4 |
| 750 | 1.0 | 2.1 |
| 1,000 | 1.4 | 2.8 |
| 1,500 | 2.1 | 4.2 |
| 2,000 | 2.8 | 5.6 |
| 2,500 | 3.5 | 7.0 |
| 3,000 | 4.1 | 8.4 |
| 4,000 | 5.5 | 11.2 |
| 5,000 | 6.9 | 14.0 |
To convert words to pages for any other setting, divide your word count by that setting's words per page from the earlier table:
pages = words ÷ words per page
example: 1,500 words ÷ 357 (double-spaced) = 4.2 pagesHandwritten pages
Handwriting varies too much for one number, but you can measure your own in a minute. Count the words on three typical lines, take the average, and multiply by the number of ruled lines on the page.
Example: If three lines hold 10, 12 and 11 words, you write about 11 words a line. On a sheet with 25 ruled lines, that's about 11 × 25 = 275 words a page, so a 1,000-word answer needs nearly four pages.
Single vs double spacing
Double spacing roughly halves the words on a page: about 357 instead of 724 in 12-point Times New Roman on A4. Many teachers, universities and journals ask for it because the gaps leave room for comments and make long text easier to read. A 1.5 line spacing sits in between, at about 500 words a page.
If an assignment sets a word count, the number of pages doesn't matter, so write to the words. If it sets a page count instead, check which font, size, spacing and margins are expected before you start, because those settings can change the length of a "five-page essay" by 30% or more.
Reading and speaking time for your word count
Our Word Counter estimates reading time at 225 words a minute and speaking time at 140 words a minute, and the table below uses the same rates:
| Words | Reading time | Speaking time |
|---|---|---|
| 500 | about 2 minutes | about 3½ minutes |
| 1,000 | about 4½ minutes | about 7 minutes |
| 1,500 | about 6½ minutes | about 11 minutes |
| 2,000 | about 9 minutes | about 14 minutes |
| 3,000 | about 13½ minutes | about 21½ minutes |
| 5,000 | about 22 minutes | about 36 minutes |
For a speech, work backwards: a 5-minute talk at 140 words a minute is about 700 words.
Check your own document
The most reliable answer is your own file, because it already has your font, spacing and headings:
- Microsoft Word: the status bar at the bottom shows the page and word count. For pages, paragraphs and characters together, choose Review > Word Count.
- Google Docs: choose Tools > Word count to see pages, words and characters.
- Plain text: paste it into Word Counter. It runs in your browser and also shows characters, sentences, paragraphs and readability.
- A PDF: copy the text out or convert the file, as our guide to converting PDF to Word without losing formatting explains, then read the counts in Word.
To turn finished plain text into a PDF, Text to PDF lets you choose the font style, size, line height, margins and page size, and tells you how many pages the result has. Its fonts aren't the same as Word's, so treat that page count as a guide. It runs on our server, and each conversion counts as one task in the free daily allowance (2 a day without an account, 3 with a free account).
Before your next assignment, set up your document with the required font and spacing first, then write to the word count and let the pages follow.
Frequently asked questions
How many pages is 500 words?
About 0.7 of a page single-spaced, or 1.4 pages double-spaced, in 12-point Times New Roman on A4 with 1-inch margins.
How many words is 2 pages?
Roughly 1,370 to 1,520 words single-spaced, or 680 to 750 words double-spaced, in 12-point Times New Roman on A4 with 1-inch margins.
How many pages is 2000 words?
About 2.8 pages single-spaced or 5.6 pages double-spaced at the same settings. With 11-point Calibri it's closer to 2.5 single-spaced pages.
Is 1,000 words two pages?
Not usually. In 12-point Times New Roman single-spaced it fills about 1.4 pages, and only reaches two pages with a large font, wide margins or lots of headings and lists.
How many paragraphs is 1,000 words?
It depends on paragraph length: at 100 to 150 words a paragraph, 1,000 words makes 7 to 10 paragraphs.
