What it does
The word counter shows these counts for any text, and updates them as you type:
| Row | What it counts |
|---|---|
| Words | Runs of letters or digits, in any language |
| Characters | Every character you see, spaces and line breaks included |
| Characters without spaces | The same, leaving out spaces, tabs and line breaks |
| Sentences | Sentences that hold at least one word |
| Paragraphs | Blocks of text separated by a blank line |
| Reading time | Words divided by the reading speed |
| Speaking time | Words divided by the speaking speed |
How to use it
- Paste or type your text into “Your text”, or select “Try a sample” to see how it works.
- Read the counts next to your text. They update as you type.
- To change the reading or speaking speed, open “More options” and enter a number of words per minute.
- Select Copy to put every count on your clipboard, one “Label: value” line each.
How the times are worked out
Reading time = words ÷ reading speed, and speaking time = words ÷ speaking speed, each rounded up to whole seconds. With the defaults, a 1,000-word essay takes 4 min 13 s to read and 6 min 40 s to say.
- The reading speed starts at 238 words per minute, an average for silent reading of English non-fiction from a 2019 review of reading studies. Fiction, technical text and reading on a small screen vary.
- The speaking speed starts at 150 words per minute, a common pace for a talk or a presentation.
- Each speed accepts 50 to 1,000 words per minute. The tool remembers the speeds you choose on this device.
Good to know
- A word count can differ a little from a word processor’s. This tool splits words with your browser’s text rules, so “e-mail” is two words and “don’t” is one.
- Characters are counted as you see them, so “é” is one character however it was typed. The character count in the box’s footer counts the way programs store text instead, so an emoji there can count as two or more.
- A line of only an emoji or “…” is not a sentence, because it holds no word.
- The limit is 1,000,000 characters at a time, about 1 MB of plain English text.
Privacy
Your text is processed on your device: the counting runs in your browser, and nothing you type or paste is uploaded.