Re: Countchars

["George Scithers" owlswickpress@xxxxxxxx]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Robert Holmgren" 
To: 
Sent: Wednesday, February 09, 2005 5:07 PM
Subject: Re: Countchars
** Reply to message from "George Scithers"
 on Wed,
9 Feb 2005 14:48:22 -0500
What is far more useful is what's called in the
trade "printer's rule" -- set maximum line length to 63 words
and
punctuations and spaces (but not, of course, including codes).
Interesting, George. Good to know. When you say "set maximum
line length to
63 words an[d] punctuation and space (but not, of course,
including codes)" --
you mean, 63 characters or columns, right?
I mean 63 characters (including characters and spaces). Not 6.3
inches.
This comes out as 10 "words" per line -- with lines no longer
than 63 characters, the average mid-paragraph line will come out
at about 60 characters (& spaces, etc.) And assuming that a
"word" is six characters (including the space).
>So it doesn't
matter whether monospaced or proportional, rag right or flush,
as long as it's
63 chars -- correct?
Counting proportional spaced type is a real pain. Set this up
with monospaced type on the screen. Counting justified type is a
pain too.
And 100 lines means 100 printed lines (not page length)?
Well, you can set the page length counter in XyWrite for whatever
you please -- but it's real simple if you set the lines per page
(PL) to 100. Then the page/line counter, when you get to the end
of the file, will give you how many 100-line pages -- but
remember that it's giving you the number of lines on the last
page, so it's 100 times (page-count minus one), plus the number
of lines on the last page. Then 10 times the line count is the
"word" count.
Gee, that's an interesting formula. So the assumption is 6
words per line?

How universal is this concept?
Pretty universal among old-timers who are calculating how many
pages a story or a novel will use up in a book or magazine. Of
course, there are multiplying factors that depend on type size,
leading, and page size that convert the "word" count to typeset
pages.
The nice thing about Printer's Rule for authors is that it's the
most generous way of counting the length of a submitted work, and
if one is being paid by the word . . .
George H Scithers