PDF Character Counter

Count the characters in a PDF, with and without spaces, page by page. The PDF character counter reads your file in your browser and never uploads it, so it’s safe for contracts, theses and documents you’re quoting for translation.

With and without spaces
Page-by-page counts
Never uploaded

Drop a PDF here, or choose a file

The PDF is read in your browser. It is never uploaded.

Choose PDF

No file chosen yet.

Extracted text

How to count characters in a PDF

Counting the characters in a PDF takes three steps, on a computer or a phone.

Choose your PDF

Drop the file onto the box or tap “Choose PDF”. It’s read on your device, not uploaded.
Wait a moment

Each page is read in turn. A long PDF takes a few seconds.
Read the counts

Characters with and without spaces, words, letters and lines, a table for every page, and the extracted text to copy or download.

Example

A 10-page report with 28,500 characters averages 2,850 characters per page. Without spaces, it might have about 24,000.

Characters with and without spaces

Character counts are quoted two ways. Check which one your limit or price uses.

Count	What it includes	Typical use
With spaces	Every letter, digit, symbol, space and line break	Most character limits: forms, abstracts, applications
Without spaces	Everything except spaces, tabs and line breaks	Some translation and typing quotes
Letters	Only letters, in any language	Checking text length without numbers or punctuation

Why a PDF character count can differ from the original

A PDF stores text as positioned pieces, not as paragraphs, so its character count can be a little different from the document it was made from:

Line breaks in the PDF become characters, and the spaces at the ends of lines may be added or lost.
Headers, footers and page numbers on every page are counted.
Hyphenated words split across lines keep their hyphen.
Ligatures such as “ﬁ” in some fonts may come through as one character instead of two.
Scanned pages have no text layer and count as 0.

For an exact count of the source document, count the original file. If the PDF is scanned, take a screenshot of each page and use the Picture Word Counter, which reads text from images.

Who counts characters in PDFs

A character count matters whenever a limit or a price is set in characters.

Who	Why they count characters
Translators	Some quotes are priced by character, especially for languages like Chinese and Japanese that don’t separate words with spaces.
Students and researchers	Abstracts, summaries and application statements often have a character limit.
Job seekers	Online application forms limit answers by characters, with spaces.
Publishers and designers	Fitting text into a layout, a cover or a caption.
Legal and admin teams	Checking documents against submission rules.

Other ways to count characters in a PDF

Most other methods need you to convert or copy the PDF first.

Method	How	Good to know
Microsoft Word	Open the PDF in Word, then Review → Word Count	Shows characters with and without spaces. Converting can change the layout.
Google Docs	Upload to Google Drive, open with Google Docs, then Tools → Word count	Uploads your file to Google.
Copy and paste	Select all the text in the PDF and paste it into the [character counter](/)	Works for one page or a few; layout may be lost.