How to count words
- Type or paste your text into the box. You can also drop a .txt file on it, or choose Open a file.
- Read the tiles on the right. They update as you type.
- Check Words, Characters, Sentences and Paragraphs, then the reading and speaking time.
- Use Clear to start again.
What this tool counts
The word counter shows seven numbers: words, characters, characters without spaces, sentences, paragraphs, reading time and speaking time. Words are found with the segmentation rules your browser already uses for text. This matters for languages that do not put spaces between words. A line of Chinese or Japanese is split into real words, and Hindi words with joined letters are counted once each.
Characters are counted as what a person sees, not as raw code units. An emoji, or a letter with an accent, counts as one character. If you only need limits for a post or a message, use the character counter, which adds a remaining-count bar.
Paragraphs are blocks separated by a blank line. Sentences are found by looking for sentence endings, including the Hindi danda and the Chinese full stop.
Tips
- Essays and assignments often set a word limit. Paste your draft in and check the total before you submit.
- Reading time is useful for blog posts. Around 238 words per minute is a common average for adults.
- Tidy the text first if the count looks too high. Remove extra spaces cleans up stray spacing, although spaces do not change the word count.
- Comparing two drafts? Use the text diff checker to see what changed between them.
Privacy
The counting runs in your browser. Your text is not sent anywhere, saved on a server, or added to the page address. Only your option choices, never your text, are remembered on this device.