linesperhour

Lines per hour (LPH) is a unit of throughput that expresses how many lines of text, data, or code are processed in one hour. It is used across several industries to compare the speed and efficiency of devices and workflows that handle text in a line-based form.

Common contexts include printing and typesetting, document scanning and optical character recognition (OCR), data entry and transcription, and automated coding or translation pipelines. In printing, LPH is sometimes compared with pages per hour (PPH) for high-level productivity.

A line is typically defined as a single row of visible characters in the output or input, often terminated by a line break. However, the precise meaning of a line can vary by domain: for scanners, it may correspond to a line of text on a document; for data-entry, a line may be a row in a form.

Factors that affect LPH include hardware capability (printers, scanners, OCR software), the complexity and layout of the source material (font, spacing, margins), noise or image quality, and operator or software automation efficiency.

LPH is usually measured over a fixed period, such as one hour, and can be used with other units like words per minute (WPM) or characters per hour (CPH) to describe different aspects of performance. In many workflows, LPH can be converted to PPH by multiplying by the average lines per page. Measurement methods vary; standardized test documents or representative samples are used, with explicit definitions of what constitutes a line and what counts as processed. Good practice includes reporting the definition, sample size, and conditions when presenting LPH figures.

Related concepts include pages per hour (PPH), words per minute (WPM), and characters per hour (CPH).