Word & Character Counter

How it works

Counts update as you type. For words, the tool uses the browser’s language-aware Intl.Segmenter when available and counts segments marked as word-like. The fallback counts Unicode letter and number groups, allowing an apostrophe within a word. Different editors and languages can use different word boundaries, so a small discrepancy between tools is possible, especially for hyphens, symbols and languages without spaces.

Characters are counted as Unicode code points rather than JavaScript’s UTF-16 code units. That avoids counting many supplementary characters twice. It is still different from visible symbols: a family emoji, a flag or a letter with a combining accent may contain multiple code points. The whitespace-free count removes spaces, tabs, line breaks and other characters matched by the browser’s whitespace definition.

Paragraphs are non-empty blocks separated by a blank line. A single line break inside a block does not create a new paragraph here. Reading time divides the word count by your selected words-per-minute rate and rounds up to a whole second. The default 200 words per minute is a calculation setting, not a measurement of your personal reading speed. This tool does not upload or save your entered text; avoid pasting secrets into a browser you do not trust.

A worked example

At 200 words per minute, a 600-word draft has an estimated reading time of three minutes. If your audience reads at 150 words per minute, the same draft takes four minutes under this model.

Common questions