Column inches: words to inches
So maybe if you don’t involve yourself with newspapers and aren’t buying advertising space, you haven’t come across “column inches,” which is one inch of space in a column of a newspaper. People love reviewing a newspaper by its use of spaces, in available inches, like this report on the New York Times by Vanity Fair.
Editors at newspapers almost always deal in inches, telling writers to give them 11 inches, or 15 inches, or 25 inches. Us younger folks, with our word processors, are all about word counts. It’s super easy to get a word count today, so college newspapers and I are used to that.
I never remember the transition from inches to words, because it varies on a newspaper’s column width and how many grafs -paragraphs – one uses. But, of course, word counts are difficult because the size of one’s words also matter. So, this post is likely more for me than for anyone else.
Regardless, the new rule is this: one inch = 35-40 words
Maybe 35 words for a six column newspaper like the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and 40 for a five column newspaper like the Philadelphia Inquirer. Again, though, these are only approximations because word length and graf break-ups affect the total more than word count.
5 inches = 175-200 words
10 inches = 350-400 words
12 inches = 420-480 words
15 inches = 525-600 words
18 inches = 630-720 words
20 inches = 700-800 words
25 inches = 875-1,000 words
Peep a portion of this sweet explanation from a school in Spokane Falls.
Column Inches
Newspapers sell advertising space on a page to retail advertisers, advertising agencies, and other media buyers.
Ads are measured using column inches. A column inch is a unit of space one column wide by one inch high.
One newspaper column inch.
On the six column page above, the total available column inches would equal the number of inches high x the number of columns.
21 1/4″ x 6 columns = 127 1/2″
More here.
Christopher Wink is the marketing director of Back on My Feet, a homeless advocacy nonprofit based in Center City Philadelphia. A resident of the Fishtown neighborhood, I am also co-founder of Technically Philly, a news site that covers technology and innovation for the region, and Web editor and business manager for NEast Philly, a hyperlocal news site for Northeast Philadelphia. I also maintain a freelance writing and editing portfolio. On this site, I share clips and write about the future of news, social media and entrepreneurship. The opinions posted here, of course, are no one's but my own, and so should not reflect my employer.
Alexandra Lozano
28 Aug, 2008
This was really helpful. Thanks.
Stephanie A. Wilken
26 Jan, 2009
Great, thanks! I never can remember either
I’m trying to get accustomed to inches in my first real job.
Congrats on U-Wire’s top 100!
Christopher Wink
26 Jan, 2009
Hey thanks. And good luck at the new job! Congratulations. Keep reading.
Kristen Lewko
18 Feb, 2009
Hi Christopher,
Thanks for this — found it very helpful. I just want to make sure I followed correctly, but is it safe to use the word counts above (ie, 175-200 = 5 inches) to calculate ROI. I do have numbers for column inches and ad rates but feel that information is outdated.
Christopher Wink
19 Feb, 2009
Kristen:
Thanks for reading and commenting. However, I would be wary of using these numbers for ROI, as they are very rough figures mostly for a reporter’s word count. It can be used as a guide, but I don’t pass it off as anything more. Different newspaper layouts can greatly vary those totals anyway. I’m sorry I couldn’t be of more help.
-cgw