Standard page

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The standard page is an auxiliary variable that can be used to estimate the size of a manuscript . In the literary business , journalism and in the advertising industry, this serves as a possible basis for calculating the fees of authors, journalists, copywriters, translators and editors . However, translations in particular are often billed according to standard lines .

Depending on the definition and source, the length of a standard page is between 25 lines with an average of 40 characters (i.e. without taking spaces into account), i.e. around 1000 characters excluding spaces, and 30 lines with up to 60 characters (i.e. including spaces), i.e. a maximum 1800 characters including spaces.

definition

The standard page is defined as a side that is in such a form that it comprises a number of rows to each of a maximum number of attacks , including spaces contains; however, there can also be fewer, since words are not separated in this accounting method. The definition thus takes into account that (especially literary) texts are a unit and therefore “empty areas” (such as empty lines , paragraphs or new chapters ) can be “meaningful”.

The definition dates back to the typewriter era , when the line length of 60  characters could be easily set with the help of a slider. A standard page can be created in a word processing program by selecting a non-proportional font ( e.g. Courier ) and setting the margins so that the maximum number of keystrokes fits into one line. The package “stdpage” is available for the free typesetting system LaTeX , with which one can easily create standard pages (also with other numbers of characters or lines) for the publisher.

Sum regulation

Nowadays, many authors, translators, editors and publishers no longer work with the "classic" standard page, but rather determine the number of standard pages of a complete text based on the number of characters. This can be determined with word processing programs , whereby the number of keystrokes here corresponds to the number of characters including spaces . In ignorance of the legal basis of the standard page (see below), the number of characters in the text is sometimes mistakenly divided by 30 × 60 = 1800 characters. If the standard page is calculated in this way, it contains on average 20 percent more text than if it was actually created physically, since half-full lines and pages as well as the formatting of dialogs are not taken into account in the calculation. For this reason, VG Wort defined a “standard page” in a simplified manner as a standard page of 1500 characters .

National regulations

There are different definitions of the norm in different countries.

Germany
It was originally stipulated in the standard contract of July 1, 1992 between the Börsenverein des Deutschen Buchhandels and the Association of German Writers : 30 lines with a maximum of 60 characters each .
Simplified by VG Wort as a standard page of 1500 characters .
Austria
Until its amendment on January 1, 2008, Section 54 of the Austrian Fees Claim Act stated that a page within the meaning of Paragraph 1 Item 1 is considered full if it contains at least 25 lines with an average of at least 40 characters. If the amount is lower, the fee for the corresponding part is to be determined. After the amendment, the standard was changed in such a way that the fee for written translations is due for every 1000 characters and to determine the fee, the number of characters in the translation (without spaces) is divided by 1000 and the result is added to the fee according to paragraph 1 multiply is. For literary translations for Austrian publishers, the standard page is usually 30 lines with max. Based on 60 characters.
Poland
For a sworn translation: 1125 characters per page, rounded up to the full page.
Czech Republic
1800 characters per page, i.e. 30 lines with 60 characters or approx. 250 words.

Further use

Many publishing editors and proofreaders who work on paper also use the standard page for their improvements and comments, both between the lines and in the margin and at the bottom of the page. Therefore, formatting in a medium-sized and easily legible font is often desired. When the page is set up according to the standard page standard, there is enough space for correction characters in the text and corrections in the margins as well as for further comments , even with one and a half line spacing .

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b specialist and non-fiction books on vgwort.de
  2. ↑ Austrian Fee claim law in the RIS