Word & Character Counter

How the counts work

Words are separated by whitespace. A hyphenated word or a contraction counts as one word. Characters counts Unicode code points, so an emoji usually counts as one character rather than two. Characters without spaces removes all whitespace before counting.

Sentences are detected by punctuation: a full stop, question mark, exclamation mark or ellipsis. This is a useful estimate, not a grammar check. Abbreviations and decimal numbers can confuse any counter.

Paragraphs are separated by a blank line. Lines counts every line break. Reading time divides the word count by 200 words per minute and rounds up, because most people read prose at roughly that pace.

What to use it for

• Checking an abstract, bio or meta description against a word or character limit.
• Estimating how long a blog post or script will take to read.
• Getting a quick character count for a form with a strict limit.
• Checking that a draft has the number of paragraphs you intended.

Counting rules vary

Different word processors and publishing systems define words and characters differently. Microsoft Word, Google Docs, social media platforms and content management systems may all disagree slightly. If a limit is critical, check against the system that will enforce it.

Privacy

The text is processed in your browser. It is not sent to NelcByte. The site does not save your draft, so copy anything you want to keep before closing the tab. Your browser may restore form values on refresh, depending on its settings.