How to use the word counter
- Type or paste your text into the box. The counts underneath update with every keystroke, so there is no button to press to see the numbers.
- Read the figures that matter for your task: words for an essay or article, characters for a social post or meta description, sentences and paragraphs for a style check, reading and speaking time for a blog post or speech.
- Optionally tidy the text with the buttons below it: change the case, strip accents, remove duplicate or empty lines, sort lines or encode the text. Every change can be reverted with Undo.
- When you are done, press Copy or download the result as a plain
.txtfile. Your text stays in the browser the whole time.
A free word counter and character counter that keeps your text private
Most people reach for a word counter at the last minute, usually with a deadline close by. An essay needs to be between 1,500 and 2,000 words, a LinkedIn summary has a character limit, a scholarship statement must stay under 650 words, and a cover letter should fit on a single page. This page gives you the numbers instantly and then goes a few steps further with practical text utilities that writers, students, marketers and developers use every day.
Unlike many online counters, nothing you paste here leaves your computer. The counting is done by JavaScript in your own browser tab, so you can safely check a confidential contract draft, an unpublished manuscript or a private message without worrying about where it ends up. The page also works offline once it has loaded.
What each counter measures
| Counter | How it is counted | Typical use |
|---|---|---|
| Words | Runs of letters and digits; hyphenated words, contractions and numbers such as 3.5 count as one | Essays, articles, abstracts, assignments |
| Characters | Every character including spaces, punctuation and line breaks; emoji count as one | Social posts, SMS, titles, form limits |
| Characters without spaces | The same, with all whitespace removed | Some publishers and translation quotes |
| Sentences | Pieces ending in a period, question mark, exclamation mark or ellipsis | Readability and style checks |
| Paragraphs | Blocks separated by at least one blank line | Structure of articles and emails |
| Reading time | Words divided by 238 words per minute | Blog posts and newsletters |
| Speaking time | Words divided by 130 words per minute | Speeches, presentations, video scripts |
| UTF-8 size | Bytes the text occupies when saved as a plain text file | Databases, APIs, file limits |
Different programs disagree slightly on what a word is. Microsoft Word and Google Docs treat anything separated by spaces as a word, so "well-known" is one word in all of them, but a dash with spaces around it, such as " - ", may be counted as a word by some tools and ignored by others. This counter ignores stand-alone punctuation, which is closer to what an editor or teacher means. If a strict limit is involved, check the number in the tool your institution or platform uses and leave a small safety margin.
Common word and character limits
- College application essay (Common App): up to 650 words.
- Meta description for search results: roughly 150 to 160 characters before it is cut off; page titles about 60 characters.
- Post on X (formerly Twitter): 280 characters for a standard account.
- Single SMS: 160 characters in the GSM alphabet, less when emoji or non-Latin letters are used.
- LinkedIn headline: 220 characters; the About section allows 2,600.
- Instagram caption: 2,200 characters, with hashtags counted.
- Typical blog post: 1,000 to 2,000 words, which reads in about four to eight minutes.
Platforms change their limits from time to time, so treat this list as a guide and confirm the current rule on the platform itself.
Text tools beyond counting
Change case
Paste a heading typed with caps lock on and turn it into sentence case in one click. Title Case capitalizes the first letter of every word, which suits headings in many style guides, though formal style guides such as APA or Chicago keep short words like "of" and "the" lower-case, so a quick manual edit may still be needed. Sentence case capitalizes the beginning of each sentence and each new line and lower-cases the rest. Proper nouns and acronyms are lowered as well, so re-capitalize names afterwards.
Line tools
Anything that is a list, from email addresses and product names to keywords, can be sorted alphabetically, de-duplicated or stripped of blank lines. Removing duplicates keeps the first occurrence and the original order. The Clean extra spaces button collapses repeated spaces and tabs inside each line and trims the ends, which is handy after copying text from a PDF or a web page.
Accents, URL slugs and encoding
Remove accents converts letters such as é, ñ and ü to their plain forms, useful for file names and systems that only accept ASCII. Make URL slug goes one step further and produces a lower-case, hyphen-separated string like "my-first-blog-post" that is safe in a web address. URL encode and decode turn special characters into the percent-escapes used in links and back again. Base64 converts text to a compact ASCII form used in data URIs, tokens and email headers. It is an encoding, not encryption, so never treat Base64 as a way to protect secrets.
Writing tips that the numbers can help with
Counting is only the first step. Once you know the length of a piece you can shape it. If a sentence count looks low against a high word count, you are probably writing long sentences, and splitting a few in two often makes the text easier to follow. Most readability guides recommend an average of 15 to 20 words per sentence for general audiences. Paragraphs of three to five sentences work well on screens, and single-sentence paragraphs create emphasis when used sparingly. The most-used words list shows which terms dominate your draft. If a word that is not your topic appears at the top, you may be repeating yourself, and a synonym or a rewrite will help. If your main keyword never appears at all, a page meant to rank for it probably needs a revision.
For students, a practical way to hit a target length is to write first and count afterwards. Aim for about ten percent above the minimum, then trim filler phrases such as "in order to", "due to the fact that" or "it is important to note that". For translators and freelancers who bill per word, compare this number with the count your client's system reports before you quote a price, since tools differ by a few percent.
Limits and good to know
The counter handles every language that uses Unicode letters, including accented Latin text, Greek, Cyrillic and Arabic. Scripts that do not separate words with spaces, such as Chinese and Japanese, cannot be split into words reliably by this method, so use the character count for those. Very large inputs of several megabytes are accepted but may feel slow, and the page will warn you above 2 MB. Reading and speaking times assume average speeds, and a technical text, a poem or a slow speaker will take longer.
Private by design
The text you type is processed only inside your own browser. It is not uploaded, logged or stored, the tool sets no tracking cookies and needs no account. If you close the tab the text is gone, so copy or download anything you want to keep.
Frequently asked questions
How does this word counter count words?
It counts runs of letters and digits, treating hyphenated words, contractions and decimal numbers as single words. Stand-alone punctuation such as a dash between spaces is ignored. Most word processors give the same number for ordinary prose, but can differ by a few words on text with unusual symbols.
What is the difference between characters and characters without spaces?
Characters include everything you typed: letters, digits, punctuation, spaces and line breaks. Characters without spaces remove all whitespace first. Limits on social posts and form fields normally use the first figure, while some translators and publishers quote the second.
How is reading time calculated?
Reading time divides the word count by 238 words per minute, a commonly cited average for adults reading English silently, and rounds up to whole minutes. Speaking time uses 130 words per minute, a comfortable pace for a speech or presentation. Individual speeds vary a lot.
Can I count the words of a PDF or Word file here?
Copy the text out of the document and paste it into the box. The tool works on plain text, so images inside the document and formatting are not counted. For scanned PDFs you would first need to extract the text with OCR software.
Is my text uploaded or saved anywhere?
No. All counting and text conversion runs locally in your browser tab. Nothing is sent to a server, and the text disappears when you close or reload the page. You can use the tool offline after the first load.
Does it work for Chinese, Japanese and other languages without spaces?
The character count is accurate for any script, but the word count relies on spaces and punctuation, so it is not meaningful for languages like Chinese or Japanese. Use the character figure for those, or a dedicated segmentation tool.
What does Title Case do and is it the same as APA style?
Title Case here capitalizes the first letter of every word and lower-cases the rest. Formal styles such as APA, MLA and Chicago keep small words like "a", "of" and "the" in lower case unless they start the title, so edit those by hand if your style guide requires it.
Is Base64 encoding safe for passwords?
No. Base64 only changes how data is written; anyone can decode it instantly. Use it for compatibility, such as embedding text in a URL or data field, never for protecting a password or any other secret.
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