Word Counter Online
Count words, characters and lines as you type. Check estimated reading time without signing up.
Count a draft while you write, check an application word limit, or estimate how long an article takes to read. Paste plain text into the editor; the statistics update as you type.
How to use Word Counter Online
Paste your text
Type or paste your draft into the text box.
Read the statistics
Check words, characters, lines, and estimated reading time.
Revise your draft
Edit the text and watch the numbers update. No file upload is required.
Example
How to count words in a PDF
For a PDF with selectable text, use PDF to Text, inspect the extraction, and paste the result into this word counter. For scanned pages, use PDF OCR first and proofread the recognized text. This counter accepts plain text; it does not directly upload or parse PDFs.
Headers, page numbers, repeated footers, hyphenated line breaks and missing OCR words can change the count. Decide which sections belong in your word limit before pasting the final text.
Continue your task
- Extract selectable text from a PDF
- Recognize text in scanned PDF pages
- Why different word counters can disagree
What to check
Common questions
How are words counted?
Words are groups separated by whitespace. This simple rule may not suit languages that do not separate words with spaces.
Are spaces included in the character count?
The statistics distinguish characters with and without whitespace. JavaScript counts UTF-16 code units, so some emoji occupy more than one unit.
Can I count PDF words?
Extract the PDF text with PDF to Text or PDF OCR, check it, then paste it here. The counter itself takes plain text.
Is reading time exact?
No. It is an estimate based on a fixed reading speed. Language, subject difficulty and individual reading speed affect the actual time.