BACKGROUND: Some journal editors object to implementing structured abstracts because, they say, they take up more space than traditional ones. AIM: The aim of this paper is to present evidence to show that in many cases such extra space is unlikely to affect the overall pagination of a journal. METHOD: The lengths of abstracts were examined for 10 or more articles in each of 15 journals with different page-sizes, and adjusted to see whether or not increasing the traditional or decreasing the structured abstracts would change the overall pagination of the journals. RESULTS: There was no indication that using structured abstracts would affect the pagination of journals with large or medium page-sizes, even when new articles began on the next immediate page. However, structured abstracts would cause problems when new articles follow directly on from each other rather than start on a new page. CONCLUSIONS: Structured abstracts take up more space but, by and large, this does not matter. Other suggestions for saving space in journals are considered.
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