How to Count Characters Without Spaces in 2026 (Every Tool)

When the No-Spaces Count Matters

• Academic abstracts: some journals specify "1,500 characters excluding spaces" for abstract limits
• European academic conventions: French, German, and certain other European systems traditionally count chars without spaces
• Database fields: some legacy systems define VARCHAR limits as visible characters, which sometimes means without spaces
• Translation pricing: some translation services price per character without spaces
• Old-school typesetting: traditional typesetting measured "characters" as printed glyphs, excluding the negative space of word breaks
• SMS in some legacy networks: historically counted only printable characters
• Specific form fields: some online forms specify "Description (max 500 chars, no spaces)"

For social media, meta descriptions, modern SMS — always count with spaces. Spaces visibly occupy room and affect truncation.

Method 1: Microsoft Word

1. Open your document in Word
2. Click the Review tab in the ribbon
3. Click "Word Count" in the Proofing group
4. In the dialog, find the line "Characters (no spaces)"
5. This is your count

Status bar shortcut: click the word count in the bottom-left status bar — opens the same dialog. Even faster on multi-monitor setups.

For selection only: select the specific text first, then open Word Count. The dialog shows counts for selection alongside whole document.

Method 2: Google Docs

1. Open your document in Google Docs
2. Tools menu → Word Count
3. Or press Ctrl+Shift+C (Cmd+Shift+C on Mac)
4. The dialog shows characters with spaces and "excluding spaces"

Live count toggle: in the same dialog, check "Display word count while typing" to show a small live count in the bottom-left of your editor. You can click to expand to all metrics including without-spaces.

For selection only: highlight the section first, then open Word Count — counts show for selection.

Method 3: Apple Pages

1. Open your document in Pages
2. View menu → Show Word Count
3. A small bar appears at the bottom showing total words
4. Click the bar to change metric — cycle through words, characters with spaces, characters without spaces, paragraphs, pages

For selection only: highlight first — the counter shows selection-only counts.

Method 4: Online Character Counter (Recommended)

The fastest approach for one-off counting tasks:

1. Open our free Character Counter in a browser
2. Paste your text into the text area
3. Counts update live as you paste/type:
   • Characters with spaces
   • Characters without spaces
   • Words
   • Sentences
   • Paragraphs
   • Reading time
4. Copy back to your destination when ready

Advantages over desktop apps:

• Always available — no app to open
• Works on any device with a browser
• Shows multiple count modes simultaneously
• No file to save or manage
• Browser-based privacy — text stays in your device

Method 5: Programmatic Counting (Code)

JavaScript

const text = "Hello world! This is some sample text.";

// With spaces
const withSpaces = text.length;

// Without spaces
const withoutSpaces = text.replace(/\s/g, "").length;

// Without whitespace (tabs, newlines, spaces)
const noWhitespace = text.replace(/\s/g, "").length;

console.log(withSpaces);     // 38
console.log(withoutSpaces);  // 31

Python

text = "Hello world! This is some sample text."

# With spaces
with_spaces = len(text)

# Without spaces (just spaces, keep tabs/newlines)
without_spaces = len(text.replace(" ", ""))

# Without any whitespace
no_whitespace = len("".join(text.split()))

print(with_spaces)     # 38
print(without_spaces)  # 31

Bash / Command-line

# Count chars without spaces in a file
tr -d ' ' < file.txt | wc -m

# Without any whitespace (spaces, tabs, newlines)
tr -d '[:space:]' < file.txt | wc -m

# Both counts at once
echo "With spaces: $(wc -m < file.txt)"
echo "Without spaces: $(tr -d ' ' < file.txt | wc -m)"

Edge Cases and Quirks

What counts as a "space"?

Strictly: the regular ASCII space character (0x20). But some tools also exclude:

• Tab characters (\t)
• Newline characters (\n or \r\n)
• Non-breaking spaces (  or U+00A0)
• Em spaces (U+2003), en spaces (U+2002), and other Unicode spaces

Microsoft Word's "Characters (no spaces)" excludes regular spaces but counts tabs and newlines. Google Docs is similar. Online tools vary — our counter excludes all whitespace (spaces, tabs, newlines, Unicode spaces) for consistency.

Multiple consecutive spaces

"Hello world" with 2 spaces between has 1 more "space char" than "Hello world." Both reduce to the same no-spaces count: 10 chars.

Spaces in punctuation

"don't" = 5 chars, "don 't" with a space = 5 chars no-spaces. The space is excluded; the apostrophe counts.

Em-dashes and en-dashes

"word—word" with em-dash directly adjacent = 9 chars no-spaces. "word — word" with spaces around em-dash = 9 chars no-spaces (spaces excluded, em-dash counted).

Numbers and units

"5 km" = 4 chars no-spaces. "5km" = 3 chars no-spaces. Style guides differ on whether to space units; spacing affects character count even without-spaces because it removes one char regardless.

Quick Conversion Between Count Modes

If you have one count and need the other:

• Words to characters without spaces: multiply by 4.5-5
• Words to characters with spaces: multiply by 5.5-6.5
• Characters with spaces to without: multiply by 0.82-0.85
• Characters without spaces to with: multiply by 1.18-1.22

Examples:

• 500 words ≈ 2,250-2,500 chars without spaces, 2,750-3,250 chars with spaces
• 1,500 chars with spaces ≈ 1,230-1,275 chars without spaces ≈ 230-275 words
• 200 chars without spaces ≈ 240-245 chars with spaces ≈ 35-45 words

Academic Submissions: Which Count to Use

Techniques to Trim Without Spaces

If you're over the "without spaces" limit, reducing space count won't help — you need to cut actual content. Effective trimming techniques:

• Replace long words with synonyms. "Utilize" (7 chars) → "use" (3 chars). "Approximately" (13) → "about" (5). The full edit can shave 20-40% with no info loss.
• Cut filler phrases. "In order to" (9 chars no-spaces) → "to" (2). "Due to the fact that" (16) → "because" (7). "It is important to note that" (24) → usually just delete.
• Combine sentences. Three short sentences often have more total chars than one merged sentence covering the same info.
• Cut adjectives and adverbs. "Very important" → "important." "Quickly ran" → "ran."
• Use abbreviations sparingly. "United States" (12) → "U.S." (4) on second reference. "Approximately" → "approx." (8 vs 13).
• Eliminate "that" when grammatically optional. "I think that he is right" (19) → "I think he is right" (15). Saves 4 chars per instance.

Frequently Asked Questions