character counter
Count characters, words, and lines in your text with real-time updates.
A character counter helps you track the length of text for social media posts, articles, forms, or any content with character limits. This tool is essential for writers, social media managers, students, developers, and anyone who needs to monitor text length in real-time. By using a character counter, you can ensure your content fits within platform limits, meet word count requirements, and track writing progress. The tool provides instant feedback as you type, counting total characters, characters without spaces, words, and lines without storing or transmitting your text to any server.
What is character counter?
A character counter is a utility that analyzes text and provides statistics about its length and composition. It counts every character in the text, including letters, numbers, spaces, punctuation marks, and special characters. The tool also provides separate counts for characters excluding spaces, total words, and number of lines. Character counting is essential for content creation where length restrictions apply, such as Twitter posts, SMS messages, meta descriptions, or form submissions. All counting happens in real-time as you type, with processing occurring entirely in your browser for privacy and speed.
Common use cases
- Social media posts: Ensure tweets, Facebook posts, or Instagram captions stay within character limits
- Meta descriptions: Write SEO meta descriptions that fit within search engine display limits (typically 155-160 characters)
- SMS messages: Count characters to stay within SMS limits and avoid message splitting
- Form submissions: Verify that form entries meet character count requirements before submission
- Academic writing: Track word and character counts for essays, papers, or assignments with specific length requirements
- Code documentation: Count characters in code comments, variable names, or documentation strings
Limitations and common mistakes
- Character counts may differ slightly between platforms due to how they handle special characters, emojis, or Unicode characters
- The word count uses space-based separation, which may not accurately count words in languages without spaces or special formatting
- Very long texts (over 100,000 characters) may experience slight processing delays in the browser
- The tool counts visible characters but does not account for hidden formatting characters that some applications may include
- Emoji and special Unicode characters may count as multiple characters depending on the encoding system used by different platforms
How to use this character counter
- Type or paste your text into the input field
- View real-time statistics including character count, characters without spaces, word count, and line count
- Monitor the counts to ensure your text meets length requirements
- Use the statistics to understand your text composition and make adjustments as needed
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Frequently Asked Questions
What counts as a character?
Every character including letters, numbers, spaces, punctuation marks, and special characters counts toward the total character count. This includes all visible and invisible characters in your text.
What is the difference between characters and characters without spaces?
The total character count includes all characters including spaces, tabs, and line breaks. Characters without spaces excludes all whitespace characters, giving you a count of only visible content characters.
Does it count spaces?
Yes, spaces are included in the total character count. The tool also provides a separate count for characters excluding spaces, which is useful for platforms that have different counting rules.
Can I count words as well?
Yes, the tool provides word count in addition to character counts. Words are counted by splitting text on whitespace, so each space-separated sequence counts as one word.
Is my text stored or sent to a server?
No. All counting happens entirely in your browser using JavaScript. Your text is never sent to any server, stored anywhere, or transmitted over the network, ensuring complete privacy.
How accurate is the character count?
The character count is accurate for standard text. However, some platforms may count emojis, special Unicode characters, or formatting differently, so there may be slight variations when comparing with platform-specific counters.