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Word & Character Counter

Paste any text to get a live word count, character count, sentence and paragraph totals, and an estimated reading time. Everything is counted inside your browser — the text never leaves your device.

Runs entirely in your browser — nothing is uploaded

Statistics

0
Words
0
Characters
0
Sentences
0
Paragraphs
Characters without spaces
0
Lines
0
Reading time
0s
Speaking time
0s
Longest word
0 chars
Average word length
0

Counts update as you type. Reading time assumes 225 words per minute.

How to use it

  1. Paste your text into the box, or start typing directly.
  2. Read the counts on the right — they update as you type, with no button to press.
  3. Use Copy text to put the contents back on your clipboard, or Clear to start over.

How it works

Everything happens in one place: your browser. When you type or paste, the text is held in memory by the JavaScript running on this page. Each update recalculates the counts from that string and repaints the panel. No network request is made at any point, which is why the tool keeps working with your connection off.

The counting rules are deliberately conventional so the numbers match the tools people compare against:

  • Words are runs of non-whitespace characters. This is the same rule as Word and Google Docs, so a hyphenated compound counts once and repeated spaces are ignored.
  • Characters are counted as grapheme clusters using the browser’s Intl.Segmenter API — that is, what a human sees as one character. An emoji counts as one, and so does a letter built from a base character plus a combining accent.
  • Sentences are separated by ., !, ?, … and their full-width CJK equivalents.
  • Paragraphs are blank-line-separated blocks, falling back to non-empty lines when the text has no blank lines at all.

On very long text the statistics are computed at a lower priority than your keystrokes, so the textarea never stutters while you type. The panel dims briefly while it catches up.

Tips

  • If you need a count for a strict limit, check it against the tool your reader will use. Counters disagree on hyphenated words, numbers with units, and text in footnotes.
  • Pasting from a PDF often brings in hard line breaks mid-sentence, which inflates the paragraph count. The word count is unaffected.
  • Trailing whitespace does not change the word count, but it does change the character count — worth knowing if you are exactly on a character limit.

Frequently asked questions

Is my text uploaded or stored anywhere?
No. The counting happens in JavaScript running inside your own browser tab. Nothing is sent to a server, nothing is logged, and nothing is saved — closing the tab erases it. That is why this tool is safe for unpublished manuscripts, confidential reports, coursework and client copy.
Is there a limit on how much text I can paste?
There is no limit we impose. Documents of a few hundred thousand characters work fine. Past roughly 200,000 characters the tool shows a notice, because on a slower device the counters can lag a fraction of a second behind your typing. The counts stay accurate either way — a full novel manuscript will still total correctly.
How is a word counted?
A word is any run of characters separated by whitespace, which is the same rule Microsoft Word and Google Docs use. So don't is one word, state-of-the-art is one word, and hello world with extra spaces is two. Numbers and standalone symbols count as words if whitespace surrounds them.
Why does the character count differ from another tool?
Because of how emoji and accented letters are measured. This tool counts what you actually see — one emoji is one character, even though it may be stored as several code units internally. Tools that report the raw string length will show a flag emoji as 4 and a family emoji as 7 or more. For plain unaccented English text the two methods agree exactly.
How are sentences and paragraphs detected?
A sentence ends at a full stop, question mark, exclamation mark or ellipsis (including the full-width CJK versions). Paragraphs are blocks separated by a blank line; if your text has no blank lines, each non-empty line is treated as one paragraph. Abbreviations such as "Dr." or "e.g." will inflate the sentence count slightly — no rule-based counter avoids that entirely.
How is reading time calculated?
Words divided by 225 words per minute, which is a common average for silent reading of general prose. Speaking time uses 130 words per minute, closer to a measured presentation pace. Treat both as estimates: dense technical text reads slower, and your own pace may differ by 30 per cent either way.
Can I use this to check a word limit for an essay or application?
Yes, and the whitespace rule matches what Word and Google Docs report, so the number should agree with whatever your marker uses. If the limit is strict, leave yourself a small margin — different tools disagree on edge cases like hyphenated compounds and numbers with units.
Does it work offline?
Yes. Once the page has loaded, no further network access is needed. You can disconnect and keep counting.

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