Counting words, characters and reading time
Word limits are everywhere: school essays, job applications, grant proposals, product descriptions, meta descriptions for search engines and social posts with a character cap. A word counter tells you at a glance whether a text fits, without retyping it into a word processor.
Paste or type text here and the counts update live: words, characters with and without spaces, sentences, paragraphs, an estimated reading time and the ten words you used most. The text stays in your browser tab.
How to use it
- Paste your text into the box, or start typing.
- Read the live counts above or beside it.
- Check the top words list for repetition. Common filler words such as the, and and of are left out so the words that matter stand out.
- Edit until you hit the length you need; the numbers follow every change.
Example: a short two-paragraph text
Minitaska is a set of small tools. Each one does a single job in your browser. Nothing you type is uploaded.
Words: 21 Characters: 109 (88 without spaces) Sentences: 3 Paragraphs: 2 Reading time: 5 sec
Line breaks count as characters, and the blank line between paragraphs is what separates the two paragraphs.
How the counts are made
A word is a run of letters or digits, and apostrophes and hyphens stay inside it, so it's and well-known count as one word each. Letters from any alphabet count, so German, French, Arabic or Cyrillic text is measured the same way as English. Languages written without spaces between words, such as Chinese and Japanese, are counted by the space-separated chunks instead, which is not a true word count for them.
Sentences end at a full stop, exclamation mark or question mark. Abbreviations such as e.g. or Dr. therefore add an extra sentence, so treat the sentence count as an estimate. Paragraphs are blocks of text separated by line breaks.
Reading time
Reading time assumes 230 words per minute, close to the average silent reading speed measured for adults reading English non-fiction. Technical text, text on a phone or text in a second language reads slower, so for documentation a lower figure is more honest. Speaking is slower still: for a talk or a video script, plan for about 130 to 160 words per minute.
Common length targets
Search engines usually show about 150 to 160 characters of a meta description and around 60 characters of a page title. Posts on X allow 280 characters on a free account. Many university and job application essays ask for 250 to 650 words. When a limit is in characters, check whether spaces count; the tool shows both numbers.
Questions
Why does my word processor show a slightly different number?
Every counter has its own rules for hyphens, numbers, URLs and symbols. Differences of one or two percent are normal; for a strict limit, use the counter of the system that enforces it.
Do emoji count as characters?
Yes. Many emoji are made of two or more code units internally, so they can add more than one to the character count, as they also do on many social platforms.
Is my text saved?
No. It exists only in this tab and is gone when you close it.