Word Counter Online
Count words, characters, sentences, paragraphs, and lines instantly.
When a word counter is the right tool
Drafts, captions, and form limits often care about length. This page is for a quick local count: paste or type in the box, and seven figures update as you type — words, characters, characters without spaces, sentences, paragraphs, lines, and an estimated reading time. There is no file upload and no sample text; Clear empties the box.
The rules are simple JavaScript string operations, not a linguistic tokenizer. That is usually enough for English prose with ordinary punctuation. It is the wrong tool if you need dictionary words in unspaced CJK, or a grapheme count for emoji.
Use cases
Checking a draft against a limit
Blog CMS fields and some school assignments cap words or characters. Watch the Words or Characters card as you edit. Remember that character totals include spaces and use UTF-16 length, which can disagree with a publisher who counts Unicode code points.
Estimating how long something will take to read
Reading Time is a 200-words-per-minute estimate, always shown as at least one minute. For a more focused reading-time view, there is also a Reading Time Estimator.
Counting structure, not just words
Paragraphs (blank-line separated) and lines help when you are checking a stanza, a changelog, or a list. A sentence count is only as good as the punctuation rule above, so skim the text if abbreviations or headings without periods matter.
How counting works
All seven figures are computed in the browser on every keystroke. Words use a trim and a split on whitespace. Characters use the string length; the no-spaces variant deletes whitespace first. Sentences come from a regular expression that looks for ., !, or ?. Paragraphs split on a blank line. Lines split on \n. Reading time is ceil(words / 200) with a floor of 1 minute.
Hello world.
This is a second paragraph.
Words 7 · Characters 41 · Chars (no spaces) 34
Sentences 2 · Paragraphs 2 · Lines 3 · Reading Time ~1 minThe blank line makes two paragraphs and three lines. Both sentences have terminal periods, so they are counted. The reading-time card shows ~1 min because seven words still round up to one minute.
What this tool does not do
It does not segment CJK words, count grapheme clusters, ignore Markdown syntax, or offer a words-per-minute setting. The reading-time card does not drop to 0 on empty input. Nothing is sent to a server. To tidy spaces before you count, try the Whitespace Cleaner.
How to use Word Counter
- Paste or type your text into the box. The seven cards update as you type.
- Use Clear when you want to start over.
Frequently asked questions
How are words counted?
The text is trimmed, then split on whitespace (spaces, tabs, and line breaks). A hyphenated term such as well-known counts as one word. Text with no spaces, including a string of CJK characters, counts as a single word. Empty or whitespace-only input is 0 words.
Do character counts use visible letters or something else?
Characters is the JavaScript string length, which counts UTF-16 code units. Many emoji and some rare characters therefore count as 2. Characters (no spaces) is the same length after all whitespace is removed. Spaces, tabs, and newlines are included in the first total and excluded from the second.
How are sentences, paragraphs, and lines defined?
A sentence is a run of text that ends with ., !, or ?. A fragment with no terminal punctuation is not counted, so “Hello. World” is one sentence. “Dr. Smith went home.” is two, because the abbreviation is treated the same as an ending. Paragraphs are blocks separated by a blank line. Lines are splits on newline; a trailing newline adds an extra line. Empty input is 0 for all three.
How is reading time calculated?
It is ceil(words / 200) minutes, then raised to a minimum of 1. The card always shows at least ~1 min, even when the box is empty or the text is a few words long. The 200-words-per-minute rate is a fixed estimate, not a setting.
Is my text sent to a server?
No. Counts update in your browser as you type. Closing the tab discards what you pasted. Do not paste text that contains secrets or personal data if you would not be comfortable with it sitting in memory on this device.
Is there a file size limit?
There is no server-imposed limit, because nothing is uploaded. A few thousand words is comfortable. A very large paste can make the tab feel slow; in that case, count a smaller excerpt.
Related tools and guides
References
- Unicode text segmentation (words, grapheme clusters) is more precise than splitting on whitespace or counting UTF-16 code units. This page uses the simpler JavaScript rules described above, which is enough for many English drafts and less reliable for CJK or emoji-heavy text.
- The 200-words-per-minute reading estimate is a common rule of thumb for adult silent reading in English, not a measurement of your own pace.