How to use the word counter
- Type or paste your text into the box. The counts update as you go.
- Read words, characters (with and without spaces), sentences, paragraphs and lines, plus average word length.
- Check reading time and speaking time. Change the words per minute if you read or speak faster or slower than the defaults of 200 and 130.
- Pick a character limit such as 280, 500 or 1,000, or enter your own, to see how much room is left.
- Scroll to Top keywords to see the most used words. Switch the common word filter on or off.
How each number is counted
A word is a run of letters or digits. Hyphenated words such as well-known, contractions such as don't, and numbers such as 3.14 or 1,000 each count once. For scripts written without spaces, such as Chinese, Japanese and Thai, the tool uses the browser's own word segmentation when it is available.
Characters are user-perceived characters, not code units. An accented letter written as a base letter plus a combining mark counts once, and an emoji with a skin tone or a family emoji built from several parts also counts once. Line breaks count as one character each. Characters without spaces removes all spaces, tabs and line breaks first.
A sentence ends at a period, exclamation mark, question mark or ellipsis that is followed by a space or the end of the text, so 3.14 does not split a sentence. Chinese and Japanese sentence marks always end a sentence. The method does not know abbreviations, so Mr. Smith counts as two sentences. A paragraph is a block of text separated from the next by at least one blank line, and a line is anything separated by a line break. A single final line break does not start a new line.
A worked example
Take this text: The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. It was a sunny day! Was it fun? Yes. It has 18 words, 4 sentences, 81 characters with spaces and 64 without. The 60 letters over 18 words give an average word length of 3.3. At 200 words per minute, 18 words take 5.4 seconds to read, shown as 5 sec, and at 130 per minute about 8 sec to speak.
Reading time, speaking time and keywords
Reading time is words divided by your reading speed. Two hundred words per minute is a common planning figure for silent reading of ordinary prose, but real speed varies a lot with the reader and the material, so edit the number. Speaking time uses 130 words per minute, a relaxed presentation pace. Both are estimates for planning, not measurements.
The keyword table counts each lowercased word, skips single letters and plain numbers, and can ignore a built-in list of common English words such as the, and and of. Words with equal counts are listed alphabetically. The share column is the count divided by the total number of words.
Privacy and large text
Your text never leaves the browser tab. It is not uploaded, saved to local storage or kept after you close the page. Pasting a very large text, around 1 MB, works too: counts are recalculated after a short pause so typing stays responsive.
Assumptions and limits
- Sentence counting is rule based and does not recognize abbreviations such as Dr. or e.g.
- Word counts can differ from a word processor by a few words, because each program has its own rules for hyphens, slashes and numbers.
- Keyword filtering covers English common words only. Other languages are counted but not filtered.
- The character limit meter counts characters with spaces. Some platforms count emoji or links differently, so check their own rules.
- Reading and speaking times are estimates based on the speeds you set.
Frequently asked questions
Does this word counter save or send my text?
No. All counting runs in your browser tab, nothing is written to storage, and nothing is transmitted. When you close or reload the page the text is gone.
How many words is a page?
It depends on font, spacing and margins. A single spaced page of 12 point text often holds roughly 500 words and a double spaced page roughly 250, but paste your own text above for an exact figure.
Why is my count different from Microsoft Word or Google Docs?
Programs disagree on edge cases such as hyphenated compounds, dashes, slashes and numbers with separators. This tool counts a hyphenated word or a number like 1,000 as one word and counts only runs of letters and digits.
What is the difference between characters with and without spaces?
Characters with spaces counts everything you typed, including spaces and line breaks. Without spaces removes all whitespace first, which some assignments and forms use as their length rule.
Which limit should I pick for a short post?
Choose 280, 500 or 1,000 from the list or type your own number. The meter fills as you write and turns to a text warning once you are over the limit. To change the capitalization afterward, try the case converter.