Why do character counts differ between tools?
Because "character" can mean three things: bytes (what a database column or an HTTP body limit measures), code points (what most programming languages count) or grapheme clusters (what a person sees — an emoji with a skin tone, or an Arabic letter with its diacritics, is one grapheme but several code points and even more bytes). Unicode defines grapheme and word boundaries in UAX #29; a length validation that counts one way in the browser and another way on the server will accept or reject different input.
How to use Word Counter
- Paste your text.
- Adjust the reading speed or the number of top words if needed.
- Read the counts, details and the frequency table; download the table as CSV.
Word Counter features
- Words, characters, sentences, paragraphs and lines
- Reading and speaking time with adjustable reading speed
- Word frequency table with share percentages and minimum word length filter
- Unique words, lexical diversity, average word and sentence length, longest word
- Arabic, Devanagari, Latin and mixed-script support
- Live statistics while you edit
Word Counter example
Count a bilingual paragraph
Input:
Quality is never an accident. مرحبا بالعالم.Output:
Words 7 · Sentences 2 · Reading time 3 sec · Scripts: Latin, ArabicFrequently asked questions about Word Counter
How are words counted in Arabic and Hindi?
Words are sequences of letters, digits and combining marks, so Arabic harakat and Devanagari matras stay attached to their word. "مرحبا بالعالم" counts as two words.
How is reading time estimated?
Words divided by the reading speed (default 200 words per minute, adjustable). Speaking time uses 130 words per minute, a typical presentation pace.
What counts as a sentence?
Text ending in . ! ? the Arabic question mark ؟ or the Devanagari danda । followed by a space or the end of the text. Abbreviations like "e.g." may be counted as sentence ends.
What is lexical diversity?
Unique words divided by total words. A higher percentage means more varied vocabulary; it is shown next to the unique-word count.
References
- UAX #29: Unicode Text SegmentationHow text is divided into grapheme clusters, words and sentences — why a "character" count can differ from a code-point or byte count.
- UAX #15: Unicode Normalization FormsThe NFC, NFD, NFKC and NFKD forms — the reason two visually identical strings can compare unequal until normalised.
- RFC 3629: UTF-8, a transformation format of ISO 10646How code points are encoded as one to four bytes in UTF-8, and which byte sequences are invalid.