Word and character counter
Words, characters with and without spaces, sentences and paragraphs in one pass.
Fill in the fields and the result will appear here automatically.
Measures the size of a text and states the rules it counts by, because «word» and «sentence» are conventions rather than properties of a string, and different counters return different numbers. A word here starts with a letter or digit, and a hyphen or apostrophe inside does not split it: «don't» and «up-to-date» each count once. A sentence is a non-empty run between full stops, exclamation and question marks, and text without a closing mark still counts as one sentence. A paragraph is a non-empty line, so a double line break does not double the count.
How it works
Formula and logic
Words start with a Unicode letter or digit; following letters, digits, combining marks and internal apostrophes or hyphens stay in the token. Characters are code points of the original string without normalization; the no-space count excludes all whitespace. Mean word length = code points in word tokens / word count, excluding surrounding punctuation. Sentences are nonempty segments between . ! ? …; paragraphs are nonempty lines. These are counting conventions, not linguistic analysis or the quota rules of external platforms.
Example
The line «The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. All done!» is 11 words and 54 characters.
Fields and units
- Text — unitless
How to use
- — Paste or type text into the field — line breaks are preserved.
- — Use the count with spaces when a post or advert has a limit.
- — Use the count without spaces when work is paid per character.
- — Mean token length and words per segment describe this text; they are not a readability score.
Method and limitations
- Calculation method
- Formula and logic
- Data or methodology source
- MDN: Unicode letter and digit properties; word-joining rules are this counter’s convention MDN: string iteration counts code points rather than visual characters
- Limitation
- Characters are code points of the original string without normalization; the no-space count excludes all whitespace. These are counting conventions, not linguistic analysis or the quota rules of external platforms.
FAQ
Do spaces count as characters?
Yes: the total includes spaces, line breaks and tabs. The other count excludes all whitespace. Check the target platform rules, which may use a different method.
How is a hyphenated word counted?
Internal hyphens and apostrophes join one token: “up-to-date”, “don’t” and “someone’s” each count once. Surrounding punctuation is excluded from word length; internal marks are included. This is a chosen convention, not a universal definition of a word.
What if the text has no full stop at the end?
It still counts as one sentence. Otherwise the counter would report zero where a sentence plainly exists.
Why is a blank line between paragraphs not counted?
A paragraph is a non-empty line, so a double line break between paragraphs does not double the count.
Are Cyrillic and Latin counted the same way?
Yes — characters are counted in code points, so a Cyrillic letter weighs exactly as much as a Latin one.