Guide
Word counter: what it does and how to use it
The word counter updates as you type or paste. It reports words, characters, characters excluding spaces, sentences, and an estimated reading time in minutes. That is the set of numbers people actually ask for: a school assignment with a word minimum, a meta description with a character budget, a social caption, or a script with a rough runtime.
Words are split on whitespace, so “well-known” counts as one word and a line of space-separated tokens counts as you would expect. Characters includes every symbol and space. No spaces is the count after whitespace is removed, which is closer to the limit some forms enforce. Sentences are split on periods, question marks, and exclamation marks. Reading time assumes about 200 words per minute and never shows less than one minute once there is text to read.
The text never leaves the browser. Counts follow the box live, so you can edit toward a limit without pressing a button. Paste the draft, read the numbers, and keep the prose in your own document — this page is a measuring tape, not an editor that rewrites you.
How to use it
- 1
Paste or type
Use the text area. The five counters refresh on every change.
- 2
Watch the number that matches your limit
Assignments usually care about Words. Ads, titles, and SMS-style fields usually care about Characters or No spaces.
- 3
Check sentences if the draft feels like one long line
A very low sentence count on a long paste often means missing periods. The counter only sees . ? and ! as sentence boundaries.
- 4
Use Read (min) as a rough duration
It is words divided by 200, rounded up, with a floor of one minute when there is something to read. It is not a stopwatch for reading aloud.
Good uses
- Hitting a word count on an essay, abstract, or product description.
- Staying under a character limit for a title, ad, or bio.
- Estimating how long a blog post takes to read.
- Comparing two drafts by pasting them one after another.
Tips
- Word processors and this counter can disagree by a few words when they treat hyphens, em dashes, or numbers differently. For a hard deadline, use the same counter your reviewer uses.
- A blank line does not add a word. It does add characters if you care about the raw character total.
- Reading time is a reading estimate, not a speaking estimate. Spoken delivery is often slower than 200 words per minute.
- The box does not save. Copy the draft back to your document before you leave.
Limits to know
- No grade level, keyword density, or style advice. The page counts; it does not editorialize.
- Sentence detection is punctuation-based. Headings without a period may be folded into the next sentence.
- Very large pastes are limited by the browser tab, not by an account quota.
Questions
Does “it’s” count as one word or two?+
One. Words are separated by whitespace, not by apostrophes.
Why is reading time already 1 minute for a short note?+
Once there is text, the estimate is at least one minute. It is a floor, not a claim that every sentence takes sixty seconds.
Are spaces included in Characters?+
Yes. Use No spaces when the limit ignores whitespace.
Is my draft uploaded?+
No. The counts are computed in the page as you type.