Word Count Tool

How it is calculated

Four counts are made from the text exactly as pasted. Words are runs of non-space characters, so anything between spaces or line breaks is one word: a hyphenated term like well-known is one word, and a lone dash with spaces around it counts as a word of its own. Characters are shown twice, as with spaces / without spaces, counted as Unicode characters so an accented letter is one character; the first figure includes spaces, tabs and line breaks. Lines count every line break, including blank lines, with trailing empty lines ignored. Paragraphs are blocks separated by at least one blank line. Empty or whitespace-only text gives no result. Sentences are not counted.

Common mistakes

• Expecting a character limit for a platform to match the first figure. Some platforms count line breaks differently, and others count emoji or accented letters with a different weight, so check the limit against the platform's own counter.
• Using the without-spaces figure for an assignment that asks for characters including spaces, or the reverse. Read which of the two numbers the requirement means.
• Expecting a hyphenated word or a number like 3.14 to count as two words. Each is one word here, so a word processor that splits on hyphens may give a slightly different total.
• Reading the line count as the paragraph count. A blank line between paragraphs counts as a line, so 2 paragraphs here make 4 lines.
• Pasting text with stray double spaces or empty lines at the end and assuming they add words. Extra spaces do not create words, but they do raise the with-spaces character count.