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Celveri

Word Counter

Count words, characters, sentences and paragraphs as you type, with an estimate of how long the text takes to read or say out loud.

Count the words in your text

Your text stays in this tab. It is not uploaded or saved.

Words
0
Characters
0
Characters without spaces
0
Sentences
0
Paragraphs
0
Lines
0
Longest word
0 characters
Average word
0 characters
Reading time
0 sec
Speaking time
0 sec

How to use it

  1. Type into the box above, or paste text from anywhere.
  2. The counts update as you go. There is no button to press and nothing to wait for.
  3. Use Copy text to take the text back out, or Clear to start again.

What it counts

Counting words sounds simple until you have to decide what a word is, so the rules are written down rather than left to guesswork:

  • Words are runs of characters containing at least one letter or digit. Hyphens and apostrophes stay inside a word; standalone punctuation is not a word.
  • Characters are what a reader sees, not what a computer stores. One emoji is one character, and so is an accented letter however it was typed.
  • Sentences are counted by their terminators, so abbreviations inflate the number. Treat it as an estimate.
  • Paragraphs are blocks separated by a blank line.
  • Chinese and Japanese characters count individually, since those scripts do not put spaces between words.

Common limits worth knowing

Meta descriptions are usually cut around 155 characters, a tweet allows 280, and UCAS personal statements allow 4,000 characters or 47 lines. University essays and job applications are normally set in words. Check which tool the other side will use to measure, as counts differ slightly between them.

Other text tools

More word & text tools are in development, including a character counter with target limits and a text case converter.

Common questions

What exactly counts as a word?
A run of characters containing at least one letter or digit. well-known and don’t each count as one word, because the hyphen and apostrophe are inside the word. Standalone punctuation such as a dash or an ellipsis counts as nothing. Numbers like 3.14 count as one word.
How are Chinese and Japanese counted?
Those scripts are not written with spaces between words, so counting the gaps would report one word for a whole paragraph. Each Han character and each kana counts as one word instead, which is the convention most publishers use. Korean and Thai are counted the ordinary way, by spaces, which is right for Korean but will undercount Thai.
Why does my count differ from Microsoft Word or Google Docs?
Every tool draws the line in a slightly different place, usually around hyphens, numbers, URLs and symbols. Differences of a fraction of a percent on ordinary prose are normal. If you are working to a hard limit set by someone else, check which tool they will use to measure it.
Are emoji counted properly?
Yes. A single emoji is one character here, even though many are stored as several units internally, and a multi-part emoji such as a family is still one character. Accented letters count as one whether they are typed as one character or as a letter plus a combining mark. Note that some social networks count the underlying units instead, so a 280 character limit elsewhere may not match this count.
How is the sentence count worked out?
By counting full stops, question marks and exclamation marks. It is an estimate: an abbreviation such as Dr. or etc. ends in a full stop without ending a sentence, so text full of abbreviations will read high.
Where do the reading and speaking times come from?
Reading time assumes 238 words a minute, around the average adult silent reading speed for ordinary prose. Speaking time assumes 140 words a minute, a comfortable pace for presenting. Both are rough guides: dense or technical material is slower, and your own pace may differ considerably.
Is my text sent anywhere?
No. The counting happens in this page, in your browser. Celveri has no upload endpoint and no database, and nothing you type is saved — not even in your own browser’s storage, so closing the tab discards it.

Other word & text tools

  • Character Counter

    Count characters against a limit for X, SMS, meta descriptions and more.

  • Text Case Converter

    Switch between sentence case, title case, upper, lower and code styles.

  • Word Finder

    Find words and anagrams from a set of letters, using the ENABLE dictionary.