Word Counter

Paste or type your text into the box. The word count, character counts, sentences and paragraphs update instantly as you type. Nothing is uploaded; counting happens in your browser.

Both are shown. "With spaces" counts every character including spaces, tabs and line breaks. "Without spaces" ignores all whitespace, which is what some essay and form limits use.

Reading time divides the word count by 238 words per minute, a typical silent-reading speed for adults. Speaking time uses 140 words per minute, a comfortable pace for presentations.

A straight-apostrophe contraction like "don't" or a hyphenated word like "state-of-the-art" counts as one. Curly apostrophes separate words. Isolated apostrophes or hyphens also count, matching the Text Toolbox.

Runs of Unicode letters and digits are counted, but combining marks and scripts without word-separating spaces can split or combine words unexpectedly. For Chinese and Japanese, the character count may be more useful.

The share of all words that a given word makes up. The table lists your 10 most frequent words, ignoring common words like "the" and "and" unless you include them. It helps spot overused words in an article.