Convert inches to words

Sorry for what probably sounds like a stupid question, but I am a student right now and have been writing for the student paper at my college for about eight months. They never tell me in terms of inches what to write, they tell me by words. Could someone explain to me what is meant by inches and how you might convert inches to words? Thanks. :-[

 

Setting aside that it's taken you eight months to ask someone, figure about 30-40 words per inch, depending on column width.

 

Thanks. Well, it was never something I really needed to know to this point I guess but I figure I would need to know eventually.

 

I'm sure I'll get smashed for being completely wrong, but I always figured 300 words was about 10 inches of column space.

 

At 10 picas, I think you are about right.

 

There is almost no such thing as completely wrong because, as Doc said, it depends on type size and column width. At my place, it's about 35-36 words per inch.

 

Is about 450 words per 15 inches right?

 

Unless you're a serial sesquipedalianizer. Then you're sunk.

 

Like Doc and Spnited said, it's dependent on the width's used. At my old paper, it was 33 words to an inch. But I've also written for papers where it's 30 words to an inch and others where it's 40 to an inch.

 

This is wonderful news. It sounds much more prolific when I say my penis is somewhere between 120 and 160 words long.

 

I always go with 33.3333333...which makes 12 inches a nice round 400 words, and 18 inches for 600 words. But it does depend on your paper's setup.

 

We're 40. So 400 words is 10 inches, and 15 inches is 600.

The beauty of the new pagination programs is you don't have to be exact. They can fudge little things to make your story fit the space.