WordCharacterCounter.com

Unique Character Counter

Count the unique characters in any text and list each one once. The unique character counter shows every distinct letter, digit, symbol and emoji with its Unicode code point and count, tells you which letters of the alphabet are missing, and checks whether your sentence is a pangram.

  • Unicode code points
  • Pangram checker
  • Stays on your device
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Stays on this device

Every unique character

Each different character once, with its Unicode code point, type and how many times it appears.

Your unique characters appear here.

How to count unique characters

Finding the distinct characters in a text takes three steps.

  1. Paste your text

    A sentence, a password idea, a data file or a whole document. The list updates as you type.

  2. Choose the options

    By default A and a are different characters and spaces are left out. Change either option to suit what you’re checking.

  3. Read the list

    Every distinct character once, with its Unicode code point, type and count. Copy all the unique characters in one go, or download the table.

Example

“Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow” uses all 26 letters in just 29, which makes it a pangram.

Check a sample

What counts as one character

The counter works with characters as you see them, called grapheme clusters in the Unicode standard. That matters for text that isn’t plain English:

  • Accented letters such as é count as one character, even if they were typed as e plus an accent mark.
  • Emoji with skin tones, such as 👍🏽, and combined emoji, such as 👨‍👩‍👧, count as one character, though they’re made of several code points.
  • Flags such as 🇵🇰 are one character built from two regional-indicator letters.

The Unicode column shows the code points behind each character, such as U+00E9 for é. That’s how you spot look-alikes: a straight apostrophe (U+0027) and a curly one (U+2019), or a Latin a (U+0061) and a Cyrillic а (U+0430).

Check a sentence for a pangram

A pangram uses every letter of the alphabet at least once. These are some of the best known English pangrams.

PangramLetters
The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog35
Jackdaws love my big sphinx of quartz31
The five boxing wizards jump quickly31
Pack my box with five dozen liquor jugs32
How vexingly quick daft zebras jump30
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow29

Type your own sentence: the counter lists any letters still missing, so you can keep adjusting until it’s a pangram.

Ways to use a unique character counter

Listing the distinct characters in a text is a quick way to find surprises.

UseWhat you find
Data cleaningStray characters in a spreadsheet or CSV: curly quotes, non-breaking spaces, odd dashes.
Fonts and designEvery character a font must support before you use it for a headline or a logo.
PasswordsHow many different characters a password idea really uses.
Pangrams and word gamesWhich letters a sentence is still missing.
ProgrammingCode points for escaping characters in code, URLs and HTML.
Language studyEvery letter and accent a text in another language uses.

What the unique character counter shows

Each distinct character comes with the details you need.

  • U+

    Code point

    The Unicode number for every character, such as U+00E9 for é.

  • Aa1

    Type

    Letter, digit, punctuation, currency, math symbol, other symbol, emoji or space.

  • #

    Count and share

    How many times each character appears and its share of the total.

  • A–Z

    Missing letters

    Letters of the alphabet that don’t appear anywhere in your text.

Unique character counter FAQ

What is a unique character?

A character counted once, however many times it appears. “Hello” has 5 characters but 4 unique characters: h, e, l and o.

Are A and a different characters?

Yes, by default, because they have different code points. Untick “Upper and lower case are different” to count them together.

Does it count spaces?

Not by default. Tick “Include spaces and line breaks” to list them too.

What is a pangram?

A sentence that uses every letter of the alphabet at least once, such as “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog”.

Why is one emoji listed with several code points?

Many emoji are built from several code points joined together, such as a hand plus a skin tone. They’re shown as one character because that’s how they appear.

How do I copy all the unique characters?

Press “Copy unique characters” under the table to copy them all as one line of text.

Is my text private?

Yes. Everything runs in your browser and nothing is uploaded.

Sources and references

  1. Unicode Text Segmentation (UAX #29), Unicode Consortium
  2. Pangram, Wikipedia

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