Quick answer: paste or type into the box above and the six counts update as you go. If your number differs slightly from Microsoft Word or Google Docs, that is normal. Counters disagree on hyphens, dashes, links and symbols, and the rules this one uses are listed below so you can tell where a gap comes from.
Counting words sounds like a solved problem until two tools give you two different answers for the same essay. A 1,500-word draft can come out as 1,492 in one place and 1,511 in another. Neither tool is broken. "Word" has no single technical definition, so every counter makes its own calls on edge cases, and those calls add up over a long document.
This page explains the calls this counter makes. If you are working to a specific limit, it also tells you which count to trust.
How each number is counted
- Words: anything between spaces or line breaks that contains at least one letter or digit.
well-known,don't,2026and$3.50are one word each. A dash, ampersand or emoji standing on its own between spaces is not counted. Chinese and Japanese characters are counted one per character, since those languages do not put spaces between words. - Characters: every visible character plus spaces and line breaks. An emoji counts as one character, and so does a letter with an accent, even when the underlying text stores it as two code points.
- No spaces: the same count with spaces, tabs and line breaks removed.
- Lines: the number of lines in the box. A single trailing line break at the very end is ignored.
- Sentences: text ending in a full stop, question mark or exclamation mark followed by a space or the end of the text. Common abbreviations such as Dr., Mr., e.g., a.m. and U.S. do not end a sentence, and a final sentence with no closing punctuation still counts.
- Paragraphs: blocks separated by at least one blank line. Lines that simply wrap, or single line breaks, do not start a new paragraph.
Why your count differs from Word or Google Docs
Here is how this counter handles the cases that most often cause a gap. These results come from running the counter's own code on each example.
| Text | Counted as | Why it varies between tools |
|---|---|---|
state-of-the-art | 1 word | Some counters split on every hyphen and would say 4. |
sharp—focused | 1 word | No spaces around the em dash, so it is one unbroken token here. Some tools treat the dash as a word boundary and count 2. |
sharp — focused | 2 words | A spaced dash is punctuation, not a word. Simpler counters count it as a third word. |
Tom & Jerry | 2 words | The ampersand stands alone and contains no letters. |
| A long web address | 1 word | Google Docs splits some URLs into several words. TechRepublic found it counted one long link as 6. |
Dr. Smith paid $3.50 at 5 p.m. today. | 8 words, 1 sentence | Basic sentence counters stop at every full stop and would report 5 sentences here. |
The other big source of difference is what gets included. Word processors usually leave headers, footers and footnotes out of the main count, and some include text boxes and captions while others skip them. When you paste into a web counter you only paste the body text, so the totals can drift apart for reasons that have nothing to do with how words are split.
On ordinary prose the gap is small, usually a handful of words per thousand. It grows with technical writing full of hyphenated terms, links, code or numbers.
Which count to trust
If someone else is checking your length, use their tool. A teacher who measures essays in Word, a journal that runs submissions through its own system or a client who reads counts from Google Docs will go by that number, not by any website. Use a web counter to keep track while you draft, then check the final version in the tool your reader uses.
If the limit is strict, leave yourself a margin of 1 to 2% rather than writing to the exact number. The edge cases above rarely shift a count by more than that, so the margin covers most disagreements between tools.
For guidance on typical lengths, see word count for essays, which covers school and college assignments, or how long should it be for other formats. If a platform limits characters rather than words, as X, SMS and most meta descriptions do, use the character counter, which lists the common platform limits.
Words or characters?
Most writing briefs, school assignments and publishing contracts are set in words. Social posts, ad copy, text messages and search snippets are limited in characters, because what matters there is how much fits in a fixed space. Characters-without-spaces is used less often, mainly by some translation agencies that price per character and by a few academic forms. The counter shows all three side by side, so you do not have to switch tools to check a different kind of limit.
One wrinkle: platforms do not all count characters the same way either. X, for example, counts each emoji and many non-Latin characters as two. This counter shows one per visible character, which is what most people mean, so for a tight platform limit use that platform's own counter as the final check.
Getting a clean count from pasted text
Text pasted from a PDF often has a line break at the end of every line, which inflates the line count and breaks paragraphs apart. It does not change the word count, but the paragraph and line figures will be wrong. Run it through remove line breaks first if you need those numbers. Double spaces do not affect the word count here, since any run of spaces counts as a single gap.
Count your text
The counter is at the top of this page. Nothing you paste is uploaded.
↑ Back to the counterFrequently asked questions
Does it count words the same way Microsoft Word does?
For ordinary prose the totals are usually identical or within a few words. Differences come from edge cases such as dashes, links and standalone symbols, and from Word including or excluding parts of a document like footnotes and text boxes.
Are hyphenated words one word or two?
One. well-known and mother-in-law each count as a single word here, which matches how most word processors treat them.
Does it count numbers as words?
Yes. 2026, 4% and $3.50 each count as one word, because each contains digits.
Is there a length limit?
No. The counter runs in your browser, so there is no upload limit. Very long texts, such as a full novel, may take a moment to update on older phones.
Is my text saved or sent anywhere?
No. Counting happens on your device, and the text is gone when you close the tab.