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Character count

Shows the count with spaces and without, side by side. Bytes come two ways as well: the two-bytes-per-character convention Korean applications use, and the real UTF-8 file size. Enter a limit and it shows how much is left.

What you paste is counted inside this browser and never sent anywhere.

With spaces

0chars

Without spaces

0chars

Against a limit

Pick a basis and enter a limit, and it shows how much is left.

In detail

Excluding spaces only
0chars
Words
0
Lines
0
Paragraphs
0
Bytes (Korean 2-byte convention)
0B
Bytes (UTF-8)
0B
Bytes (UTF-16)
0B
Manuscript sheets (200 squares)
0sheets

Where the numbers come from

  • Characters counts what you see as one thing as one character — an emoji, or a Korean syllable built from separate letters, counts once.
  • Bytes (Korean 2-byte convention) is the count Korean application forms and job notices mean by “within N bytes”: 1 for Latin letters and digits, 2 for Korean and Chinese characters.
  • Bytes (UTF-8) is the real size when saved to a file. A Korean syllable is usually 3 bytes, so this comes out higher than the figure above. It is what modern systems use.
  • Words is the count split on spaces. In Korean that gives the number of eojeol — the space-separated chunks.

Counts the characters and words in text you paste, with and without spaces — because which one is required differs from place to place.

With or without spaces

Applications often say "1,000 characters including spaces", while manuscript length is conventionally counted without them. When you do not know which, work to the tighter of the two.

One character is one character

Counting is by character, not byte. Systems that count bytes — older forums, database columns — treat one Korean syllable as two or three, so a "200 character limit" measured in bytes stops Korean text at around seventy.

Nothing is uploaded

The counting happens in the browser, so an unsubmitted application or an internal document stays on this machine.

Bytes are counted two ways

A limit phrased as 'within 1,000 bytes' almost always uses the old convention of two bytes per Korean syllable. It dates from the EUC-KR era and survives in job postings: letters and digits count one, Korean and Chinese characters count two. UTF-8, which modern systems actually store, needs three bytes per syllable, so that figure is larger. Both are shown; when you do not know which the recipient uses, satisfy the larger one.

Set a limit and see what is left

Pick a basis, type a limit, and the remaining count appears — or the overshoot, if you are past it. Limits people meet constantly, such as 500 and 1,000 characters for a personal statement or 90 bytes for an SMS, are ready to select. Ninety bytes is 45 Korean syllables; beyond that a message becomes an LMS, which allows up to 2,000 bytes.

An emoji is one character

Emoji are one reason different programs disagree on a count. Inside the computer an emoji occupies two units, so a tool that simply measures length counts two. Here each visible unit counts once — a skin-tone emoji or a flag is a single character. The receiving system may still count two, so leave headroom in emoji-heavy text.

Common questions

Do line breaks count?

They are included in the with-spaces figure. There is no way to know how the receiving system treats them, so leave headroom if you are close to the limit.

How are words counted?

By splitting on spaces. That matches English; for Korean it counts spacing units, which is closer to phrases than words.

How many manuscript pages is that?

Korean manuscript paper holds twenty squares per line, so 200 characters is one sheet and 400 is two. Punctuation and spaces each take a square, so the sheet count runs slightly higher than the figure here.

I am over the limit.

Trimming filler and hedging phrases loses the least meaning. Where spaces are excluded from the count, joining sentences together will not help.

How are paragraphs counted?

Blocks separated by an empty line count as one paragraph each. Lines are counted by line break, so breaking a line inside a paragraph raises the line count and leaves the paragraph count alone.

What does 'excluding spaces only' mean?

Without spaces removes both spaces and line breaks; excluding spaces only keeps the line breaks. Where line breaks count as characters, the difference between the two is the headroom you need.