What Is Words Per Minute (WPM)?

What's the best way to measure how fast someone can type? The answer is: with a stopwatch, a keyboard, and a pen. Words per minute (WPM) is a widely used metric for measuring typing speed. It can be misleading: WPM focuses on individual words rather than the number of keystrokes involved in producing them. So, if you type out "I eat," that counts as one word, even though it's five keystrokes long, but if you type out "rhinoceros," that counts as two words even though it's ten letters long. Words per minute (WPM) is the number of words processed per minute. It's most used to measure and denote the speed of typing or reading speed. Each word is standardized for measuring typing speed to be five characters or five keystrokes long, including white space. So, the phrase "I eat," which is five keystrokes long, counts as one word, whereas the word "rhinoceros," which is ten letters long, is considered two words. So, what's a good WPM? Well, that depends on whom you ask. Some people say anything above 45 WPM is fast, but others will tell you that if you're not hitting at least 100 WPM, then you need to work on it! In the 1920s through the 1970s, typing was a big deal. Companies held contests to see who could type fastest, and people often used their typing speed to qualify for secretarial jobs. We still use words per minute (WPM) to measure how fast someone can type, but it isn't as important as it once was. That's because most of us aren't using typewriters anymore. We're using computers with alphanumeric keyboards that require us to press different keys depending on what letter we want to type. Professional typists usually type at speeds between 50 and 80 WPM, whereas advanced typists can hit 120 WPM. Stella Pajamas was the fastest ever recorded 216 WPM on an IBM electric keyboard in 1946.