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Word Counter and Character Counter
Paste or type your text to count words, characters, sentences and paragraphs. The page also estimates reading and speaking time from speeds you can change, and lists the words you use most often.
How each count is defined
Different tools count slightly differently, so it helps to know the rules used here.
- Words. The text is split wherever there is white space, and a piece counts as a word if it contains at least one letter or digit. A stand-alone dash or symbol is not a word. Hyphenated terms such as well-known and contractions such as don't are one word each.
- Characters. Counted as visible symbols, so an accented letter or an emoji is one character. The page shows totals with spaces (including line breaks) and without any white space.
- Sentences. A sentence ends at a full stop, question mark or exclamation mark followed by a space or the end of the text. Abbreviations such as Dr. or e.g. can inflate the count by one each.
- Paragraphs. Blocks of text separated by at least one blank line.
Reading and speaking time
Time is words divided by a speed in words per minute. The default speeds, 200 for reading and 130 for speaking, are adjustable starting points, not measured facts about your audience. Reading speed depends on the text: technical material, unfamiliar vocabulary and small screens slow people down, while light prose is read faster. Speaking pace depends on the speaker, the room and whether slides or pauses are involved.
For a talk, time yourself reading a paragraph aloud, work out your own words-per-minute figure, and enter it. A 600-word script at 130 words per minute lasts about 4 minutes 37 seconds. Allow extra for pauses and questions.
Where word and character limits matter
Essays, abstracts, headlines, meta descriptions, product listings and many forms have limits, and they are defined in different ways: some count words, others count characters with spaces, and some count bytes. Limits set by platforms and publishers change, so check the current rule at the source rather than relying on a remembered number. When a limit is strict, count against the rule your submission system uses and leave a margin of a few words in case it counts differently.
The frequent-words table is a quick way to spot overused terms in a draft. Very common short words are left out so the list shows content words. It is not a keyword density tool that promises any ranking effect; use it as an editing aid.
Limits
Languages written without spaces between words, such as Chinese or Japanese, are not split into words by a space-based rule, so the word count will be much lower than the real number of words. The character count is reliable in those languages. Your text is processed on this page in your browser; check your own policies before pasting confidential material into any online tool.
Worked example
The sample text is two short paragraphs. The counts below update for whatever you paste in its place.
Result
180 characters including spaces.
| Words | 34 |
|---|---|
| Characters (with spaces) | 180 |
| Characters (without spaces) | 146 |
| Sentences | 5 |
| Paragraphs | 2 |
| Unique words | 28 |
| Average word length | 4.1 letters |
| Reading time at 200 words/min | 10 sec |
| Speaking time at 130 words/min | 16 sec |
Most frequent words (common short words left out)
| Word | Times used | Share of all words |
|---|---|---|
| does | 2 | 5.9% |
| april | 1 | 2.9% |
| bright | 1 | 2.9% |
| brown | 1 | 2.9% |
| clocks | 1 | 2.9% |
| cold | 1 | 2.9% |
| count | 1 | 2.9% |
| day | 1 | 2.9% |
| dog | 1 | 2.9% |
| fox | 1 | 2.9% |
- A word is any run of characters between spaces that contains a letter or digit. Hyphenated terms and contractions count as one word.
Accuracy note: Results are calculated in your browser from the values you enter. Check anything that matters for legal, academic or financial purposes against the official source.
Frequently asked questions
How does the word counter count words?
It splits the text at white space and counts each piece that contains a letter or number. Hyphenated words and contractions are single words, and stray symbols on their own are ignored.
Are spaces included in the character count?
Both figures are shown. One total includes spaces and line breaks, and the other removes every white-space character, so you can compare against whichever rule your form uses.
How is reading time estimated?
Reading time is the word count divided by a reading speed in words per minute. The default is only a starting value, so change it to match your readers or the difficulty of the text.
Why is my sentence count different from another tool?
Sentence detection is based on end punctuation, and abbreviations or decimal-like text can confuse any simple rule. Treat the figure as an approximation and review it for texts with many abbreviations.
Does it work with languages other than English?
The character count works for any script. The word count assumes spaces between words, so languages that do not use spaces will show fewer words than they really contain.
Related calculators
Checking originality
Word count says nothing about originality. To compare a draft with published text, try the free plagiarism checker from DMCA Guards, a sister project of Adzita.