Determining the amount of information contained in standards is the key issue in the application of digital technologies in the field of practical standardization. Since the practice of developing standards is based on the use of reference standards, the process of updating standards is largely difficult. Digitalization as an activity to present information in the form of numerical data or mathematical models should take into account the specifics of the construction and presentation of the documentation text. Since the structure of standards can contain not only a text part, but also a graphic part, therefore, for their digitalization, it is necessary to use an alphabetical approach using the Shannon formula. Using the alphabetical approach it is possible to calculate the size of the information contained in the standards of various types and categories. In the article, on the example of the GOST 21073.1-75 standard “Non-ferrous metals. Determination of the grain size by comparison with the scale of microstructures”, the application of the Shannon formula for calculating the amount of information is shown. For calculation the followingwas taken into account: Russian and Latin letters, digits and numbers, spaces and other characters available in the standard. An analysis was made about the amount of information contained in the current standards of subgroup 77.120.01 “Non-ferrous metals in general” of various periods of their approval. This line of research can be used as basics to adapt the known techniques for building databases and electronic libraries of standards as well as a direction for the digitalization of regulatory and technical documents, taking into account the specifics of presenting information about the requirements regulated in them.