When working in text editors, it is not difficult to determine the amount of text: just look in the statistics parameters for the number of characters. In the pre-computer era, it was impossible to count the number of letters on a typewritten page, so volume units were approved, one of which was a typewritten page.
Typewritten page options
The term "typewritten page" was most often used to define the amount of work of typists. This is a sheet of A4 standard paper (210 x 297 mm) filled with text on one side. And, since the number of characters on a page strongly depends on the width of the margins and the line spacing, all the characteristics of the "typewritten standard" have been worked out to the smallest detail. In the USSR, the parameters of the typewritten page (as well as the speed with which typists had to type the text) were approved by the State Committee on Labor and Social Issues.
According to the standards, the typewritten page had to meet the following characteristics:
- left margin - 35 mm, which corresponded to 13 spaces;
- right margin - at least 8 mm (from 3 to 4 strokes on the back key of the carriage carriage);
- the top margin of 20 mm, which corresponds to 4.5 strokes with an interval handle;
- the bottom margin is not less than 19 mm.
Thus, the text fill area was 258 x 167 mm. With such parameters, the line length was 57-60 characters (including spaces), and the number of lines per page with double line spacing, also included in the standard, was from 29 to 31. The amount of text that could fit on such a page was 1860 printed characters.
By standards, a typist had to print a typewritten page of text of the 1st category of complexity (without a large number of formulas, which was reprinted from a legible original) in 9 minutes, and the production rate per working day was 55 such pages.
Analogue in electronic form
In order to get a page in Microsoft Word that is close in parameters to a standard typewritten one, it is necessary to select the appropriate font and point size, while the font must belong to the monospaced category - those in which all letters and spaces have the same width.
For example, you can use the font Lucida console (12 point). With a portrait orientation of the page, double line spacing, the left margin is 3.5 cm, the right margin is 1.5 cm, and the top and bottom margins are 2.0 and 1.9 cm, respectively, the page will contain 30 lines of 62 characters each, which will add up to the standard 1860 signs.
Translation pages
Despite the fact that work with text is now performed on a computer, which makes it possible to accurately determine the volumes, in some areas the "conditional page" is still used as a unit of measurement - most often when it comes to the work of translators, which led to the emergence of the unofficial term "translation page". The volume of a translation page is slightly less than a standard typewritten page and amounts to 1800 characters with spaces. With the standard settings of the Microsoft Word page parameters, such a volume is occupied by the text typed in Times New Roman font with a font size of 13 and double line spacing.
