the free poetry line checker.

how the free line checker works

it measures each line in the real typeface you choose, at your chosen size, against the text area of a real paperback page: the page size minus its margins. the margins follow KDP’s published minimums, with a little extra room in each lines & pages page style.

it checks the three most common poetry paperback sizes at once: 5 × 8, 5.5 × 8.5 and 6 × 9 inches. you can change the font (twelve book fonts, or one of your own), the size, the line spacing, the page style and the indent for long lines.

what a turnover is

when a line is wider than the page, it has to carry on below. that second row is a turnover. in a poetry book it should be indented, so the reader can tell it belongs to the line above and isn’t a new line. the checker shows every turnover on a page drawn to scale, with a mark in the margin.

why line breaks matter in print

in a poem, the line break is part of the writing. a word processor wraps long lines at the margin and can make them look like new lines. checking early tells you whether a larger page, a smaller size or a hanging indent is the right answer, before you set the whole book.

a few lines, or a whole book

“a few lines” checks up to ten of your longest lines. “whole book” checks every line of a manuscript, pasted in or opened from a .txt or .docx file, and gives a rough page count and printing cost for each size.

what it can and can’t tell you

it measures with the real font, in your browser. it isn’t yet checked against a printed proof, page counts are a range rather than exact, and it doesn’t check where stanzas fall across a page turn: that needs the whole book laid out. it’s built to KDP’s published specs, which isn’t the same as KDP approval.

free, private, no account

the checker is free, with no account and no email. your writing is measured on your device and never sent anywhere or kept, unless you choose “remember my lines on this device”.