How many characters are there in a line

English translation: characters (including spaces) per line (55)

GLOSSARY ENTRY (DERIVED FROM QUESTION BELOW)

German term or phrase:	Zeichen pro Zeile (55)
English translation:	characters (including spaces) per line (55)
Entered by:	Mats Wiman

12:42 Sep 14, 2001

German to English translations [Non-PRO]
Bus/Financial - Business/Commerce (general)

German term or phrase: How many characters are there in a line

How long is a line (Zeile)? Does the number of characters include spaces (and the conventional two spaces between sentences!)? Is there an adjustment for lists that consist of single or compound terms (frequently more difficult to translate due to lack of context? Are we talking about source or target text?

I would greatly appreciate some guidance here. Is there some rule of thumb.

Phyllis

55 characters including spaces

Explanation:
That is, if you're talking about translation and if you're talking about the 'Usancen' in Germany, Switzerland and Austria.
We're talking about target text.
Additional charges are made on a caso-to-case basis

Selected response from:

Mats Wiman
Sweden
Local time: 00:11

Grading comment

Thank you for this clear-cut guideline. I will use it as my standard in future.
4 KudoZ points were awarded for this answer

Summary of answers provided

4 +2

55 characters including spaces

Mats Wiman

5 +1

55 characters to a line

Alexander Schleber (X)

It depends....

Alison Schwitzgebel

Answers

5 mins confidence:

peer agreement (net): +2

55 characters including spaces

Mats Wiman
Sweden
Local time: 00:11
Works in field
Native speaker of:

Swedish
PRO pts in category: 28

Grading comment

Thank you for this clear-cut guideline. I will use it as my standard in future.

6 mins confidence:

It depends....

Explanation:
on who you're talking to...

Agencies count a line invoiced by translators as 55 characters (generally no spaces) but in turn tend to invoice their customers for 50 chars (w/or w/out spaces as the case may be).

Direct customers may be used to dealing with 50 or 55 chars.

The character count in Word is notoriously unreliable - many translators use other programs to calculate the number of chars/lines.

Alison Schwitzgebel
France
Local time: 00:11
Specializes in field
Native speaker of:

English,

German
PRO pts in category: 165

9 mins confidence:

peer agreement (net): +1

55 characters to a line

Explanation:
55 characters to a line is a quite usual measure, though some translation agencies use different different values. 60 characters is also quite frequently seen.

From a computer standpoint a space is a character, it has a code that is passed by the keyboard. When you do a wordocunt in MS-Word, it will usually give characters both with and without spaces (and agencies ofcourse like to use the lower value).

Another form in which lines of text are evaluated is by words, where the most frequently handled standard is 10 words to a line. 30 lines to a page is another measure that is frequently used.

HTH

Alexander Schleber (X)
Belgium
Local time: 00:11
Specializes in field
Native speaker of:

German,

English
PRO pts in category: 256

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