Letter Counter
Letters counted live — alphabetic characters only, with spaces, digits, and punctuation set aside into their own columns. The strict count for when "characters" is not what was asked.
| Type | Count |
|---|---|
| Letters | 0 |
| Digits | 0 |
| Spaces & line breaks | 0 |
| Punctuation & symbols | 0 |
| Total characters | 0 |
Letters are not characters — that's the whole point
Our character counter answers "will this fit the box?" — it counts every keystroke, spaces and punctuation included, because that is what forms and platform limits count. This page answers a different question: how many letters are there? Paste "Hello, World!" and the difference is immediate — 13 characters with spaces, 12 without, but only 10 letters, because the comma and the exclamation point are characters that are not letters. When a teacher, a puzzle, a monogram order, or a cipher exercise says "letters," this stricter figure is usually the one meant — and quietly substituting a character count over-delivers by every space and period in the text.
Accents and alphabets: what counts as a letter
A letter here is anything Unicode classifies as one, in any script — so "Café 123" has 4 letters (é included) and 3 digits, and Greek, Cyrillic, or Japanese text counts its letters just as reliably as English. One honest subtlety: an accented letter can be encoded as a single composed character or as a base letter plus a separate combining accent. The engine normalizes text to the composed form (NFC) before counting, so both encodings of é register as one letter; a combining mark that has no composed form is left classified as a symbol rather than invisibly merged. Emoji, arrows, and other symbols are never letters — they land in the punctuation & symbols row of the breakdown, so every character is accounted for and the rows always sum to the total.
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between letters and characters?
Characters count everything you type — letters, digits, spaces, punctuation, emoji. Letters count only the alphabetic ones: "Hello, World!" is 13 characters but just 10 letters, because the comma, the space, and the exclamation point are characters without being letters. Assignments and puzzles that say "letters" usually mean this stricter count.
Do accented and non-English letters count?
Yes. The counter uses the Unicode definition of a letter, so é, ñ, ß, Greek, Cyrillic, Arabic, and CJK characters all count as letters. It is not limited to A–Z.
Do numbers count as letters?
No — digits are not letters, so "Café 123" has 4 letters and 3 digits. The digits get their own figure above so nothing silently disappears from the breakdown.
Why might two identical-looking texts give different counts?
Accented letters can arrive two ways: as one composed character (é) or as a plain letter plus a separate combining accent mark. This counter normalizes to the composed form (Unicode NFC) before counting, so both spellings of é count as one letter — but a rare mark with no composed form stays a non-letter symbol, which is stated plainly rather than hidden.
Counting happens locally in your browser — nothing you type is transmitted or stored. Need the everyday counts instead? The word counter and character counter cover those; the exact letter rules are on the methodology page.