Character counter
Count characters with and without spaces, words, sentences and lines, and see how your text fits the limits writers run into: posts, captions, book descriptions and titles.
Counted in your browser. Your text is never uploaded.
0 characters
- Without spaces
- 0
- Words
- 0
- Sentences
- 0
- Paragraphs
- 0
- Lines
- 0
- Bytes (UTF-8)
- 0
Limits writers run into
Each one counted the way that platform counts. Sources, checked November 6, 2026.
- X post 0 / 280 Emoji and CJK characters count 2, links 23.
- Bluesky post 0 / 300 Counted as characters you see.
- Threads post 0 / 500 Emoji count as their UTF-8 bytes.
- Instagram caption 0 / 2,200 Up to 30 hashtags and 20 @ tags.
- LinkedIn post 0 / 3,000 Posts, not articles.
- Amazon KDP book description 0 / 4,000 HTML tags count too.
- Amazon KDP title and subtitle 0 / 200 Together, fewer than 200.
What is in the text
An accented letter or an emoji counts as one character here.
- Letters
- 0
- Accented letters
- 0
- Digits
- 0
- Spaces and line breaks
- 0
- Punctuation and symbols
- 0
- Emoji
- 0
Your own limit
For a contest, a submission form or a pitch field. Saved in this browser.
Set a number to see how much room is left.
Character limits writers run into
Each limit below comes from the platform's own help page or developer documentation, checked on November 6, 2026. Platforms change these numbers, so the source is linked.
| Where | Limit | How it counts | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| X post | 280 | Weighted: most Latin letters, digits and punctuation count 1; emoji and Chinese, Japanese or Korean characters count 2; every link counts 23. | X developer docs |
| Bluesky post | 300 | Graphemes, the characters you see. A family emoji or an accented letter counts once. | Bluesky post schema |
| Threads post | 500 | Characters, with each emoji counted as its UTF-8 bytes, per Meta's developer docs. | Threads API docs |
| Instagram caption | 2,200 | Characters, with at most 30 hashtags and 20 @ tags. | Instagram API reference |
| LinkedIn post | 3,000 | Characters. Articles have a separate, much higher limit. | LinkedIn Help |
| Amazon KDP book description | 4,000 | Characters including HTML tags: bold the word test and it counts 11, not 4. | KDP Help |
| Amazon KDP title and subtitle | Under 200 | Title and subtitle together must be fewer than 200 characters. | KDP metadata guidelines |
| Google title and meta description | No limit | Google sets no maximum; it shortens both in results as needed to fit the screen. Put the point first. | Google Search Central |
Query letters and synopses are usually limited in words or pages, not characters, and each agent sets their own. When a submission form has a box with a character limit, set it as your own limit in the tool above and paste the text from your manuscript, so you see the count the form will see.
How this counter counts characters
A character is what you see on the screen: a letter, a digit, a space, a punctuation mark or an emoji. Most of the time that is simple. These are the cases where counters disagree, and what this one does.
Spaces and line breaks
Every space, tab and line break is a character. Without spaces leaves all of them out, which is the number some forms and translators ask for.
Accented letters
An é can be stored as one character or as e plus a combining accent. Both count as one here, the way X and Bluesky count them too.
Emoji
A family emoji is seven code points joined together, but it is one character on screen and one here. X counts every emoji as 2.
Links
A link counts its full length here and on most platforms. On X any link counts 23, however long it is.
Words and sentences
The same rules as the word counter: don't and mother-in-law are one word, and Mr. or Dr. does not end a sentence.
Lines and paragraphs
Lines are split by line breaks, so a blank line counts. Paragraphs are blocks of text, so blank lines do not.
| Text | Characters here | On X | Code points | UTF-8 bytes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| café (é as one character) | 4 | 4 | 4 | 5 |
| café (e plus an accent) | 4 | 4 | 5 | 6 |
| 日本語 | 3 | 6 | 3 | 9 |
| A family emoji | 1 | 2 | 7 | 25 |
| A flag emoji | 1 | 2 | 2 | 8 |
| https://feldar.com/tools/character-counter | 42 | 23 | 42 | 42 |
Worked example: famous first lines against the limits
Four openings from public domain novels, counted with this tool from the Project Gutenberg texts. A short line fits anywhere; one long sentence does not.
| Opening line | Characters | Without spaces | Words | Fits |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Call me Ishmael. Moby-Dick, 1851 | 16 | 14 | 3 | Everywhere |
| Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. Anna Karenina, Constance Garnett's 1901 translation | 77 | 64 | 14 | Everywhere |
| It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife. Pride and Prejudice, 1813 | 116 | 94 | 23 | Everywhere |
| It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, ... in the superlative degree of comparison only. A Tale of Two Cities, 1859, the whole first sentence | 612 | 495 | 119 | Not on X, Bluesky or Threads; fine for Instagram and LinkedIn |
Dickens's sentence is more than twice an X post. To share it you would cut it at "the winter of despair" with a full stop, which leaves 286 characters: still 6 over on X, and inside Bluesky's 300. That is what most writers do with a blurb or a pitch too: find the natural stop, count, and cut the last clause that is not doing work.
Writing to a limit without losing the voice
Most limits a novelist meets are for selling the book: the description, the post, the pitch. Amazon's own advice for a KDP description is to aim for a paragraph of about 150 words with sentences that are easy to scan, well under the 4,000 character ceiling.
Write long, then cut to the count
Write the description at whatever length it comes out, then cut. Cutting a draft that says everything gives a better short version than writing short from the start, because you choose what survives.
Cut in this order
First the adverbs and the second adjective in each pair. Then sentences that explain what an earlier sentence already showed. Then names: a blurb with more than two named characters makes the reader work. Keep the character, the want, what goes wrong and the question the book answers.
Make the first sentence carry the book
Feeds, store pages and search results often show only the opening lines before a "more" link, and the cut point varies by screen. Make the first sentence work on its own, then check that the text still reads well if it stops halfway.
Count what the form counts
If the form counts HTML, as KDP's description box does, the tags take room. If it counts emoji twice, as X does, one emoji costs two letters. Paste the final text here, pick the matching limit, and leave a few characters spare.
Questions about character count
Do spaces count as characters?
Yes. Spaces, tabs and line breaks are characters, and almost every platform counts them. The counter shows both numbers: characters with spaces, and without.
Why does X say my post is longer than this count?
X weighs characters. Emoji and Chinese, Japanese or Korean characters count 2 and every link counts 23. The X post row in the limits panel uses X's own rule, so it matches what X shows.
How are emoji and accented letters counted?
As one character each, because that is what you see. Some systems count the parts underneath: a family emoji is seven code points and 25 bytes, which is why the table above shows all three.
How long should a meta description be?
Google sets no limit. It shortens descriptions in its results to fit the screen, so put the most useful sentence first rather than writing to an exact number.
How many characters is a query letter?
Agents ask for query letters in words or pages, usually one page. Some submission forms limit a field in characters; set that number as your own limit to check it before you paste.
Is my text uploaded or stored anywhere?
No. It is counted in your browser and kept in this browser until you press Clear. The word counter keeps its own separate text.
Can I count only part of my text?
Yes. Select part of the text in the box and the toolbar shows how many characters are selected.
Write the book behind the blurb
In Feldar every page has an outline of scenes and a word target. Write it yourself with the scenes beside you, or press Draft Page for a first pass at the length you set. Export the finished book as DOCX, PDF, Markdown or text.