Word counter and character counter
Paste your text to see how many words, characters (with and without spaces), sentences and paragraphs it has, plus the reading time. Handy for essays and assignments with a word limit. Your text never leaves your browser.
Words
0
Characters
0
No spaces
0
Sentences
0
Paragraphs
0
Reading
0 min
What it's for
Essays, lab reports and application essays often come with a minimum or maximum word count. Paste your text, set the limit and you'll see how many words you have left or how far over you are. The list of words you repeat most helps you catch the ones you lean on before you hand it in.
Reading time uses the averages from Brysbaert's 2019 review of reading rate: 238 words per minute reading silently and 183 reading aloud. A 650-word text comes out at about 2 min 44 s read silently and 3 min 33 s read aloud. If you're timing a presentation, leave extra room for pauses.
Over the limit? The AI summarizer condenses a long text into its key ideas. If you still have to write it, try the AI essay writer and always review what you submit. More calculators and helpers are in the free study tools.
Frequently asked questions
How are words counted?
Every run of letters or digits separated by spaces or punctuation is one word. Contractions such as don't, it's and they're count as one word, and so do hyphenated words such as well-known, because there's no space inside them. Numbers count as words too.
What's the difference between characters with and without spaces?
With spaces counts everything: letters, digits, punctuation, spaces and line breaks. Without spaces leaves out spaces, tabs and line breaks. Most forms that set a character limit count spaces; if an assignment just says "characters", check which one is meant.
How is the reading time worked out?
The word count is divided by 238 words per minute for silent reading and by 183 for reading aloud. Both figures come from Marc Brysbaert's 2019 meta-analysis of reading rate in adults: 238 is his estimate for silent reading of non-fiction (190 studies) and 183 for reading aloud (77 studies). Everyone reads at their own pace, and a talk with pauses runs slower than reading aloud.
Is my text saved or sent anywhere?
No. The counting happens in your browser and the text isn't sent to any server.
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