Writing Word Phone Numbers Down — the Directory Conventions

If you arrived looking for a word phone directory template, the honest answer is that no template product is published on this site. What can be published is better: the conventions a word number needs to follow anywhere it is written — in a directory, on a business card, in a directory-style listing of your own. Word numbers that break these conventions get mistyped by customers; word numbers that follow them dial first time.

Convention 1: show the digits, or show the word — correctly

A word number can be written as 1300 EASY DIAL or as 1300 327 934 — the published mapping (2 ABC through 9 WXYZ) makes them the same number. What a directory entry should never do is show a word that fails the mapping: run every letter back through the keypad and confirm the digits match before anything is typeset.

Convention 2: keep the format whole

The prefix and the tail travel together: 1300 or 1800 plus the six-digit tail (or the word carrying it), and a 13 number as six digits in total. Truncation — a tail cropped to fit a column — is the classic directory error, and a truncated number is a broken number however good it looks.

Convention 3: one style, everywhere

Whatever style you choose — word first, digits first, both — use it identically across every listing. The directory is where customers go to confirm the number they half-remember; two styles in two places reads as two businesses.

Convention 4: verify against the live listing

A directory of word numbers is only as honest as its availability. Find a Number searches available 1300/1800 Phonewords by word or last six digits — a number in your template should be listed there, and a specific word is not guaranteed until sign-up confirms it. Pricing, if your directory shows it, follows the published rule: from $40 per month with availability and desirability affecting the figure, on the pricing page.

A worked directory entry

One entry, done to the conventions, as a model: the business line reads 1300 EASY DIAL (1300 327 934) — word and digits shown, mapping verified letter by letter, format whole, style matching the rest of the listing, number confirmed against the live availability listing before publication. Four conventions, one line, zero mistyped calls. Every directory entry on the planet can be checked in the same thirty seconds.

Why conventions beat templates

A template gives you boxes; conventions give you rules that survive any box. Word numbers typeset by the four conventions above can move between directories, websites and print without re-checking — because the check has already happened at the mapping level, where errors actually live.

Related reading: reading words in the wild, words to numbers, or the Phonewords overview.

Directory conventions questions

Can I download a template here?

No template product is published on this site. The four conventions above are the reusable part — they apply to any directory format you are working in.

Should the word or the digits go first in a listing?

Either, consistently — the conventions require correctness and uniformity, not a house style. Pick one and apply it across every entry.

How do I list a number that is not mine?

You do not — this site publishes availability of numbers for sale, not a directory of numbers in use. Listings belong to the businesses that hold the numbers.

What punctuation should a word number carry?

Whatever aids reading — the conventions govern correctness (mapping, length, consistency), not taste. The published example reads 1300 EASY DIAL with the prefix and word spaced.