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Fired up by the success of my German standard page/standard line calculator (see below), I thought I’d knock out another calculation tool website.

But this time, a converter rather than a calculator. Because that will be loads quicker to implement. Won’t it?

Nope.

It’s way more complicated. If using maths, you build in the calculation formula and only ever have one correct answer. But for a converter you need a clear data model that’s able to compare data and round it where necessary.

Added to that, some shoe size systems have separate children’s sizes that partially overlap those for adults, as well as different sizes for women and men.

And because the website is in English and German, I had to localise not just the text on the page, but also the conversion function, to take into account the different decimal separators in the respective language regions.

Phew!

A quick website to fill a gap in my schedule became a mammoth project that took several weeks.

Published October 2025.

Due to the level of competition, it will take some time before page views reach a respectable number, but it’s slowly making progress.

“Darling, we need milk!”

“OK, I’ll add it to my JavaScript-based shopping list using the push() method.”

Said nobody ever.

But anyone learning JavaScript has to plough through dozens of exercises like this. Boring AF!

I therefore decided to use these few kernels of new knowledge to create something halfway interesting – a standard page/standard line calculator for the publishing and translation industries in the German-speaking countries.

Eh, that’s supposed to be interesting?!

Well, whoever has anything to do with these – such as me, for years as a translator – constantly comes up against standard pages and lines. And like everything here, the situation is complicated, as there are a number of variants that sometimes only apply in certain situations. And then the exceptions …

Having identified a gap in the market, I set to work and published the website in August 2025.

Danuta Reah is an award-winning British author and academic.

She is perhaps best known for her crime fiction novels set in and around her home city of Sheffield. Of her nine novels so far, eight were published by big name publishers and many were also published in other languages.

She has also written numerous short stories, and as well as fiction, written or co-authored a number of non-fiction and academic books relating to language and writing.