Word Counter

How words are counted

The counter splits your text at spaces, tabs and line breaks, then keeps every piece that contains at least one letter or digit. That rule decides the cases people ask about most:

Characters are counted as you see them: an emoji such as 👍🏽 or an accented letter typed as two code points counts as one character, not two or four. The Without spaces figure leaves out spaces, tabs and line breaks.

Reading and speaking time

Reading time divides the word count by 238 words per minute, the average silent reading speed of adults reading non-fiction in English in a 2019 review of 190 studies by Marc Brysbaert. Fiction is read a little faster, about 260 words per minute, so change the speed in the options if you write stories. Speaking time uses 183 words per minute, the average for reading a text aloud in the same review.

Presenters usually speak more slowly than that when they pause for slides or questions. To plan a talk, the words to minutes converter lets you choose a speaking pace.

Sentences, paragraphs and averages

• Sentences end with ., ?, ! or … followed by a space, and with the Chinese and Japanese marks 。, ！ and ？ (no space needed). An empty line also ends a sentence, so a heading without a period is counted on its own, and each item of a bulleted or numbered list (a line starting with -, *, • or 1.) is its own sentence. A single line break inside a paragraph does not end one, because text copied from PDFs often breaks mid-sentence. Abbreviations such as Mr., e.g., U.S. and p.m., decimals and single initials do not end a sentence (etc. does when the next word starts with a capital), and a quoted exclamation followed by a lowercase word (“Stop!” she said.) stays one sentence.
• Paragraphs are blocks separated by at least one empty line. Text with single line breaks only counts as one paragraph.
• Average sentence length is words ÷ sentences. Style guides for plain writing often suggest keeping the average under about 20 words; the readability checker flags long sentences one by one.
• Unique words counts distinct words, ignoring case, which shows how varied the vocabulary is.

Top words and the word goal

The Top words table lists the ten most used words and their share of all words. Common function words such as the, and and of are hidden by default so the words that carry meaning stand out; untick the option to include them. For two- and three-word phrases, use the keyword density checker.

Set a word goal to see a progress bar and how many words are left, which helps with essays and applications that have a word limit. Over the goal, the bar turns red and shows how many words to cut.

Cutting a text down to a word limit

When a draft runs over, the Top words table and the averages show where the words go:

1. Remove filler words first. Words such as really, very, just and actually often appear in the top words list and can usually go without changing the meaning.
2. Split or shorten long sentences. If the average sentence is well above 20 words, the sentence counter lists every sentence over 25 words (you can change the limit) so you can start there.
3. Replace phrases with single words. In order to becomes to; due to the fact that becomes because; at this point in time becomes now.
4. Check the limit’s rules. Some applications count titles, references or footnotes and some do not, so read the instructions before cutting content you need.

Word counts and pages

A rough guide for a typical page (12-point font, 1-inch margins) is about 500 words single-spaced and 250 words double-spaced. Fonts, spacing and headings change this a lot, so use the words to pages converter for your settings.

Questions