Word Counter
Paste or type text to instantly get words, characters, sentences, paragraphs, lines, bytes and reading time. Mixed Chinese-English text is counted the Microsoft Word way (Latin words plus one count per CJK character), with a top-10 keyword list plus writing metrics like average sentence length and lexical variety, and a time ↔ word-count calculator to budget speeches and posts. Everything runs locally in your browser; your text is never uploaded.
- Metrics
- 10+ metrics · top words · calculator
- Counting rule
- Latin by word, CJK by char
- Privacy
- Nothing uploaded
- Access
- Free · no sign-up
Draft auto-saved in your browser
Time ↔ word-count calculator
Set your budget before writing or speaking: silent reading and spoken delivery run at different speeds. Results are given separately for English (words) and Chinese (characters).
English ≈ words · Chinese ≈ chars
English ≈ · Chinese ≈ min
WHY IT MATTERS
The counter writers, students and marketers rely on
Essay limits, social posts, ad copy, SEO meta tags — different scenarios enforce different limits. See them all in one place.
Correct mixed-language counts
Mirrors the Microsoft Word "word count": Latin words count as one each, while Chinese characters, Japanese kana and Korean syllables count per character — "我爱 Beijing" is never reported as 2 words.
10+ metrics, live
Words, characters with and without spaces, sentences, paragraphs, lines and UTF-8 bytes — plus average sentence length, lexical variety and your longest word — update as you type, no button to click.
Time ↔ word-count calculator
Silent reading and spoken delivery run at different speeds: convert target minutes into an English-word or Chinese-character budget, or reverse a given count into minutes — essential before writing speeches, voice-over scripts and posts.
Reading-time estimate
Estimates from the commonly used averages of ~200 English words and ~300 Chinese characters per minute, so you can gauge how long a piece takes to read.
Top-10 keyword frequency
Lists your most frequent words with counts — check keyword density and spot repetitive wording for SEO and copy editing.
Fully local
Your text never leaves the browser or touches a server; the tool even works offline and makes no requests while the input is empty.
The fine print of counting words
"Word count" means different things in different software. Knowing the rules keeps you from missing a limit.
What is the difference between words and characters?
Characters count every unit in the text, including spaces, punctuation and line breaks; words measure meaningful language units.
Our word count follows Microsoft Word: each run of Latin letters counts as one word, and each Chinese character, kana or Korean syllable counts as one. "Hello 世界" = 3 words (Hello + 世 + 界) and 8 characters including the space.
How is mixed Chinese-English text counted?
Runs of Latin letters and digits are extracted as words (contractions like don't and hyphenated forms like state-of-the-art stay intact), while Han characters, kana and Hangul syllables are counted individually.
The two are added together, so "我在 2024 年去过 New York" = 我, 在, 2024, 年, 去, 过, New, York — 8 words.
How is reading time estimated?
Two averages common in content marketing are used: about 200 English words per minute and about 300 Chinese characters per minute, calculated separately and summed.
This is a conservative estimate for silent reading of unfamiliar material; fluent readers and skimmers go faster, while figures, code and dense formulas slow things down. Treat it as an order of magnitude. The time ↔ word-count calculator below can also work backwards from a spoken-delivery speed.
How are paragraphs and lines defined?
Lines are split at every newline, including blank ones; paragraphs are split at blank lines (consecutive newlines).
When the whole text uses single newlines with no blank lines — typical in chat boxes and phone notes — each non-empty line is treated as a paragraph, so a full article is never reported as one paragraph.
Why do UTF-8 bytes differ from characters?
UTF-8 is a variable-length encoding: ASCII characters (Latin letters, digits, common punctuation) take 1 byte, while Chinese, Japanese and Korean characters typically take 3 bytes, and some emoji take 4.
So 1,000 Chinese characters are 1,000 characters but about 3,000 bytes. Database VARCHAR limits, API payloads and SMS billing all count bytes.
What limits do common platforms enforce?
Frequently cited references: Twitter/X allows 280 English characters (~140 for CJK), Google title tags are best kept under ~60 characters, meta descriptions under ~155, and WeChat articles tend to retain readers best at 1,500–3,000 Chinese characters.
Platform rules change — always check the platform\'s own documentation before publishing.
Frequently asked questions
Are the results identical to Microsoft Word?
The word count follows Word's "Words" metric: Latin by word, CJK by character. Character counts (with and without spaces) and paragraphs use the same definitions. A few exotic hyphenated compounds may differ by 1–2 from Word, so keep a small margin when hitting an exact limit.
Is my text uploaded or stored?
No. Every calculation happens in your browser via JavaScript; there is no request that sends your text to a server, and the tool works offline. The text disappears when you refresh the page.
How long a text is supported? Is there a limit?
The tool itself has no limit — pasting an entire novel works. On low-end devices, extremely long texts (hundreds of thousands of characters) may cause slight input lag because every metric is recomputed live.
Does the top-words list work for Chinese?
Yes, but differently from English: English words are grouped case-insensitively, while Chinese is counted by individual character (so particles like 的/了/是 usually top the list). Chinese word segmentation requires a dictionary whose results vary by word list; per-character frequency is blunt but stable for spotting repetition and filler words.
What speed should I use for speeches and voice-over scripts?
Spoken delivery is markedly slower than silent reading: Chinese narration runs at roughly 200 characters per minute and English at roughly 130 words per minute — casual conversation is faster, formal speaking slower. Use the "Spoken / script" mode of the calculator below: a 3-minute speech works out to about 600 Chinese characters. Best practice is to time a rehearsal of the finished draft and adjust.
Does it work on mobile?
Yes. The page is responsive on small screens: paste a long text and all metrics update live, using exactly the same counting rules as the desktop version.