A character count with spaces counts everything in the text: letters, digits, punctuation and every space. A count without spaces leaves the spaces out. If a limit says only "characters", assume spaces count. That is how text fields measure length, and it is the safe reading: a text that fits with its spaces always fits without them.
Both numbers for one sentence
Meet me at the north gate at noon, not the main entrance.| Measure | Count |
|---|---|
| Characters with spaces | 57 |
| Spaces | 11 |
| Characters without spaces | 46 |
| Words | 12 |
The two counts differ by the number of spaces, and in ordinary single-spaced prose there is one space fewer than there are words. Twelve words, eleven spaces. That gives a quick sanity check: for a single paragraph, the count with spaces should be close to the count without spaces plus the word count, minus one. Line breaks, double spaces and tabs each add to the difference.
Who asks for which
Web forms and applications: with spaces. A form field stores your text as a sequence of characters, and a space is stored like any letter. The HTML maxlength attribute, the standard way for a web page to cap a field, measures the length of the whole value, spaces included. Some organizations spell it out. UCAS, for example, describes the limit on its personal statement as a character limit "(including spaces)". The Common App does not say it in words, but the worked example in its own activities handout only adds up with spaces included, as the guide to Common App character limits shows.
Translation and other work priced per character: it depends on the client. Two public bodies show how far the conventions differ:
- The Court of Justice of the European Union, in its 2025 tender documents for freelance legal translation, prices work per standard page of 1,500 characters excluding spaces, counted in the source language.
- Germany's law on paying court-appointed experts, interpreters and translators (JVEG, section 11) sets the translation fee per started block of 55 keystrokes (Anschläge), counted as a rule in the translated text. The section does not define a keystroke any further.
One counts characters without spaces in the original. The other counts keystrokes in the translation. If you are quoting or being quoted a per-character price, ask two questions: do spaces count, and is it the source text or the finished text that gets counted?
Layout and fixed-width space: with spaces. A headline slot, a printed column or a display with a fixed number of positions has to count spaces, because a space takes up a position just as a letter does.
Academic and editorial briefs: usually stated, sometimes not. Most briefs set a word limit. When one sets a character limit and does not say which kind, ask. If you cannot ask, meet the limit with spaces included.
Word processors: both. Google Docs lists "Characters" and "Characters without spaces" in its word count (the mobile apps say "Characters excluding spaces"). Microsoft's developer reference for Word defines two separate statistics, described as "Count of characters" and "Count of characters including spaces". The pairing suggests that the plain figure in Word leaves spaces out, which would be the reverse of the Google Docs wording. Read the label in front of you instead of assuming. The guide to counting characters in Word and Google Docs has the steps.
How to tell which one a requirement means
- Look for a qualifier. "Including spaces", "with spaces", "excluding spaces" and "no spaces" settle it.
- Ask who enforces it. If software enforces the limit (a form, a field in an app), spaces count. If a person uses the number to price or assess work, the convention is theirs, so ask.
- Test the counter. If the form shows a live count, type
a b. A result of 3 means spaces count; 2 means they do not. - Check the tool the requester named. "500 characters by Word's count" is still ambiguous, because Word can report characters with or without spaces. Ask which.
- Fall back to the stricter reading. When nothing settles it, make the text fit with spaces included. It will then pass either way.
What "spaces" covers
There are two ways to compute "without spaces", and they give different answers as soon as the text has tabs or line breaks.
- Narrow: remove only the ordinary space, the character the space bar types (U+0020).
- Broad: remove all whitespace, which also covers tabs, line breaks and non-breaking spaces.
Take two lines of a contact sheet with a tab after each colon. The bracketed markers show where the invisible characters are:
Name:[tab]Ana Ruiz[line break]
City:[tab]Porto| Measure | Count |
|---|---|
| All characters | 26 |
| Ordinary spaces | 1 |
| All whitespace: 1 space, 2 tabs, 1 line break | 4 |
| Without ordinary spaces only (narrow) | 25 |
| Without any whitespace (broad) | 22 |
The Character Counter on this site uses the broad definition: its "Characters without spaces" figure leaves out every whitespace character, not only the ordinary space. The Advanced statistics panel lists "Spaces" (the ordinary space only) and "Whitespace characters" separately, so you can get the narrow figure by subtracting "Spaces" from "Characters".
Other tools do not always say which definition they use. The Google and Microsoft help pages cited here do not. If the difference could matter, paste a short sample that contains a tab and a line break and see what the tool reports. The guide on line breaks, tabs and spaces lists the whitespace characters you are likely to meet, including the ones that look like an ordinary space but are not.
Which number to give
| Situation | Use |
|---|---|
| A field in a form or an application | With spaces, then confirm with the form's own counter |
| A limit that says only "characters" | With spaces |
| A limit that says "without spaces" or "excluding spaces" | Without spaces, and check how tabs and line breaks are treated |
| A per-character price | Whatever the contract says; ask if it does not say |
| Reporting a count to someone else | The number and the convention together, for example "1,480 characters including spaces" |
When you report a count, naming the convention costs three words and removes the question entirely. For limits enforced by a web form, the guide on how form limits work explains why the form's own number can still differ from the one in your editor.