Word count vs. character count: what’s the difference?
Word count and character count are not the same. A word count is the number of words in a text. A character count is the number of individual characters: every letter, digit and punctuation mark, and, if you count “with spaces”, the spaces too. An English sentence has several times more characters than words, and the two character counts differ by exactly the number of spaces in the text.
Words, characters and spaces
- Word count: most tools count a word as a run of characters between spaces or line breaks, so a comma or period attached to a word doesn’t add to the count. “letter.” is one word.
- Character count without spaces: every letter, digit and punctuation mark counts as one; spaces don’t.
- Character count with spaces: the same, plus the spaces between words. Whether line breaks are counted too varies from tool to tool.
One sentence, counted four ways
The rain stopped, and she finally opened the letter.
This sentence has 42 letters, 2 punctuation marks (a comma and a period) and 8 spaces.
| Count | Result | What’s counted |
|---|---|---|
| Words | 9 | The, rain, stopped, and, she, finally, opened, the, letter |
| Characters with spaces | 52 | 42 letters + 2 punctuation marks + 8 spaces |
| Characters without spaces | 44 | 42 letters + 2 punctuation marks |
| Characters without spaces or punctuation | 42 | Letters only |
Every number in that table is a correct answer to “how long is this sentence?” Before you compare two counts, make sure they were made the same way.
The Word Count dialog in Microsoft Word
Microsoft Word’s Word Count dialog shows several numbers. Three of them match the counts above:
- “Words”
- “Characters (no spaces)”
- “Characters (with spaces)”
The difference between the two character counts is the number of spaces in your document.
Why different tools give different counts
Even two tools that both count “words” don’t always agree. The usual reasons:
- Hyphenated words. Is “e-mail” one word or two? A tool that splits only at spaces counts “a 2,000-word draft” as three words; one that also splits at hyphens counts four.
- Numbers. “2,000” and “3.5” are normally one word each, but a tool that treats commas and periods as separators may split them.
- Punctuation on its own. A dash with spaces on both sides counts as a word in a tool that splits only at spaces.
- Emoji. Many programs count characters in UTF-16 code units, the way programming languages such as JavaScript and Java measure the length of a string. Common letters, digits, punctuation marks and Chinese characters take one code unit each, but many emoji take two, and emoji built from several characters, such as a thumbs-up with a skin tone or a country flag, can take four or more.
None of these is a mistake. The tools are answering slightly different questions.
If you’re writing to a limit, go by the counting rule the publication, contest or website states, or the number its own form shows, and leave some margin if you’re not sure.
Chinese and Japanese: characters instead of words
Chinese and Japanese are written without spaces between words, so splitting at spaces doesn’t work. Text in these languages is usually measured in characters: each Chinese character, kana and punctuation mark counts as one. When Chinese writers talk about a word count, they usually mean this kind of count, with a run of Latin letters or digits counted as one.
Here is a sentence that mixes Chinese with an English word and a number, with an ordinary space on each side of “iPhone” and “2000”. It says, roughly, “Wrote 2,000 characters on my iPhone this weekend. Very happy.”
周末用 iPhone 写了 2000 字，很开心。
It has 9 Chinese characters, 6 Latin letters, 4 digits, 2 full-width punctuation marks and 4 spaces. Splitting it at spaces gives 5 pieces, which says nothing about its length. Counted the usual ways:
| Count | Result |
|---|---|
| Characters with spaces | 25 |
| Characters without spaces | 21 |
| Chinese characters and punctuation, with “iPhone” and “2000” as one each | 13 |
| The same, without punctuation | 11 |
This is where a writing app’s word count settings matter.
Word count settings in Pure Writer
Pure Writer is a plain text editor for writing. Pure Writer for Android and iOS has a “Word count” section in Settings with two options:
- “Count words individually”: when on, a run of Latin letters, digits and similar characters counts as one, while each Chinese character or full-width punctuation mark still counts as one; spaces and line breaks aren’t counted. It’s on by default when the app language is anything other than Chinese, Japanese, Korean or Thai, and off by default in those four.
- “Word count & punctuation” (on iOS, “Word Count Mode & Punctuation”): choose from three modes, “Exclude spaces and line breaks”, “Include all symbols and text”, and “Exclude all punctuation, spaces, and line breaks”. This option has no effect while “Count words individually” is on.
For the Chinese sentence above, Pure Writer counts 13 with “Count words individually” on, and 21 with it off and “Exclude spaces and line breaks” selected.
“Exclude all punctuation” works from a list of common punctuation marks, so a few symbols that aren’t on the list are still counted. Some characters, such as emoji, count as 2. Pure Writer Desktop has no setting for how words are counted. For details, see About the word count options in the user manual.
FAQ
Are word count and character count the same?
No. A word count counts words; a character count counts every letter, digit and punctuation mark, and sometimes the spaces too. “The rain stopped, and she finally opened the letter.” has 9 words, 44 characters without spaces and 52 characters with spaces. In Chinese and Japanese, which don’t put spaces between words, what people call a word count is usually a character count.
What does “character count with spaces” mean?
It’s the number of characters including the spaces between words. A character count without spaces leaves the spaces out, and the difference between the two is the number of spaces in the text. Whether line breaks are included varies between tools.
Does punctuation count toward the word count or character count?
Punctuation attached to a word, like the period in “letter.”, doesn’t add a word to a word count, but in a character count, punctuation marks count just like letters. Some tools can leave punctuation out. In Pure Writer for Android and iOS, turn off “Count words individually” in the “Word count” section of Settings, then choose “Exclude all punctuation, spaces, and line breaks” under “Word count & punctuation” (on iOS, “Word Count Mode & Punctuation”).
Why does an emoji count as two characters?
Many programs count characters in UTF-16 code units. Common letters, digits and punctuation marks take one code unit each, but many emoji take two, and emoji built from several characters, such as a country flag, can take four or more. Pure Writer also counts emoji and some other characters as 2.
Why is Pure Writer’s count different from Microsoft Word’s?
Their counting rules aren’t identical. Word shows “Words”, “Characters (no spaces)” and “Characters (with spaces)” side by side, while Pure Writer counts according to the options in the “Word count” section of its settings. To compare, set Pure Writer to the closest equivalent: for Word’s “Words”, turn on “Count words individually”; for “Characters (no spaces)”, turn it off and choose “Exclude spaces and line breaks”. Even then, emoji and symbols that aren’t on Pure Writer’s punctuation list may be counted differently, so small differences are normal.