BitsAreFunWord & Character Counter
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About counting
- What counts as a word?
- Anything separated by spaces or line breaks, which is what Word and Google Docs do — so "state-of-the-art" is one word, not four, and your count here should match the one in your document. Text written without spaces between words is handled separately: Chinese, Japanese and Thai are segmented properly, so "你好世界" counts as two words rather than one.
- Why does my count differ from another tool?
- Almost always hyphens and apostrophes. Some counters split "well-known" into two words and "don't" into two; this one treats each as one, matching the word processors people usually check against. Counts can also differ if the other tool ignores numbers, or counts a line of punctuation as a word.
- What counts as a character?
- What you would count by eye. An emoji like 👨👩👧👦 counts as one character, not the eleven that a naive count reports. An accented letter is one character however it happens to be stored. Spaces, punctuation and line breaks all count too — the "characters, no spaces" figure is there when you need the count without them.
- How are sentences counted?
- By your browser's built-in sentence segmentation, which is better than splitting on full stops but still approximate — an abbreviation like "Dr. Smith" is read as a sentence break, so text heavy with abbreviations will count high. Treat the sentence and paragraph figures as a guide rather than an exact measure.
- What is a paragraph, and what is a line?
- A paragraph is a block of text separated from the next by a blank line, which is the typographic meaning. A line is simply a line break, so a list of ten items on ten consecutive lines is ten lines but one paragraph.
- How is reading time worked out?
- Words divided by 225 per minute for reading, and by 130 per minute for reading aloud. Both are mid-range figures for average adults on general prose — dense or technical material runs slower, and individual pace varies a lot, so use them for rough planning rather than precise timing.
- Does this tool upload my text anywhere?
- No. Everything is counted in your browser as you type, and nothing you write or paste ever leaves your device — so it is safe for drafts and confidential material.
Count words, characters, sentences, paragraphs and reading time as you type.
- words
- 0
- characters
- 0
- characters, no spaces
- 0
- sentences
- 0
- paragraphs
- 0
- lines
- 0
- reading time
- 0
- read aloud
- 0
- chars
- 0
- status
- idle