About
One counting rule, printed on the page, applied to every text you paste.
What this site does
Two pages, one counter: words, characters (with and without spaces), sentences, paragraphs, reading time, speaking time and the most repeated words. Everything is computed in the browser from the text you paste; there is no account and no upload.
The counting rules
| Number | Rule | Where it breaks |
|---|---|---|
| Words | Runs of letters or digits; internal apostrophes and hyphens stay attached | CJK text has no spaces, so the word count is meaningless there |
| Characters | Every UTF-16 code unit, including spaces and line breaks | Emoji can be several code units; some platforms count them differently |
| Characters, no spaces | All whitespace removed before counting | Some forms trim leading and trailing whitespace only |
| Sentences | Non-empty pieces between . ! ? | Abbreviations such as "Dr." split a sentence in two |
| Paragraphs | Blocks separated by a blank line | A single line break does not start a new paragraph |
| Reading time | Words ÷ 200 per minute | Dense or technical text is slower |
| Speaking time | Words ÷ 130 per minute | Pauses, slides and audience questions are not counted |
Each rule is printed next to the result on the tool pages, so a number can be checked by hand.
Why the rules are explicit
Different tools disagree because they use different rules, not because one is broken. Microsoft Word keeps hyphenated words whole; some online counters split them. Google Docs counts a trailing space; some others do not. Publishing the rule is the only way to make the number reproducible.
What it cannot do
- Count words in Chinese, Japanese or Korean. Without spaces, "word" has no mechanical definition; use characters instead.
- Measure bytes. UTF-8 storage limits need the encoded length, not the character count. An emoji costs four bytes in UTF-8.
- Judge readability. Sentence length and word length are only proxies; the counter does not score clarity.
- Replace a platform's counter. Where a limit is enforced, the platform's own number wins.
On word-count anxiety. A counter is a tool for trimming and planning. Treating an essay target as a number to hit exactly, rather than a range to land inside, makes writing worse, not better.
How the pages are built
Static HTML, one stylesheet and one script, served from this domain. No framework, no CDN, no analytics script, no cookie. The counter is a few hundred lines of plain JavaScript, which is why it loads instantly and works offline once the page is open.
Corrections
If a counting rule is wrong, the fix belongs in the script that all pages share, not in the page text. The tool pages, the about page and the tests all read from that one definition.