Character Count and Word Count Script With Character Countdown

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Copy and Paste Character and Word Counter

Copy/Paste Character and Word Counter

I often have a need for a character count script to tell me how many characters something contains. I also often find a need for a word count script. Since I never seem to find such a dual-purpose script handy for calculating characters and words all at once, my quickest response is often to open up my Microsoft Word. I wait for the cumbersome software to load, then copy and paste it and wait for Word to think for a while. It stinks, and I finally got really tired of it. There is no need to hog system resources and more screen space by opening Word or a similar software. I nearly always already have a browser window open, so it would be a lot easier to just open a new tab and then copy and paste the content into a quick and easy javascript character counter and word counter.

I have been a web guy for a very long time. I have often found that when I need a script or an application, it is best to just sit down and create it myself. Over the years, I have written a squillion web applications of all kinds. Strangely enough, I often find that the simplest tools to create are also the ones I have a hard time finding the moment to just do it. Once I get around to it, I have often found that there were a lot of others who felt the same way. For example, there are thousands of people every month who use my very basic and aged screen resolution test. I wrote it because at the time I saw a need for it in my daily routine. The same thing happened here.

Simple Javascript Character Counter and Word Counter

I finally got tired of the character count and word count dilemma, and I decided to just write my own handy javascript character count plus word count script. I decided that it should provide live counting when content is typed or pasted into the form, and be quick and painless to load. It started out like this:
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Extended Javascript Character Counter, Word Counter, and Etcetera

Since I was already on the task of creating a character counter and word counter, I decided to throw in a couple of extra pieces to create an an all-in-one character countdown script. Since there are so many social networks where characters matter, I thought some of you may find it useful as well. I did not add many just yet, but if there is a countdown you would like me to add, just add your comment here on my blog. I will add it right away.

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Add a Character Count to Your Website

If you think this is useful, of course I welcome you to bookmark this page and keep coming back. Feel free to copy and paste either of the snippets below and add them to your site.
Simple Javascript Character Counter and Word Counter
<iframe src ="http://www.awebguy.com/character-word-count.html" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" width="500" height="200"></iframe>

Extended Javascript Character Counter, Word Counter, and Etcetera
<iframe src ="http://www.awebguy.com/character-count.html" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" width="500" height="400"></iframe>

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"Old School" Comments (hide / show)

C Rindi

Thank you, Mark!

Adrian

Good work! How about including a method to trigger messages or alerts part way through the field being populated? A while back (can't find it now) I found a similar script with a progress bar that changed colour when the limit was approaching - but I would quite like a 'soft limit' i.e. 'if message length 140 chars or less then alertA/doX', 'if message length longer than 140 characters then AlertB/doY'. Of interest?

Adrian

Timothy Lee Rayner

Integrating this into facebook itself via greasemonkey for firefox would make this even more awesome. I am preparing to start running a business and it would be much more convenient to tweet from my businesses facebook page than from twitter IF facebook had a character counter.

Jim Rudnick

Nice one, Mark...I've been using Darren's SERP Snippet tool here -- http://www.seomofo.com/snippet... -- for much the same thing...but will try yours as well!

;-)

Jim

Mark Aaron Murnahan

Thanks Jim. Ooh, that is nice (the SEOmofo). I never checked it out before now. I like it, but I also wanted to count up, down, and even be able to paste a book in it. Besides, somebody probably needs this widget parked right there by their CMS. :-D

Scott S

Nice one Mark, you've just saved me several hours work!

Like you, I often find myself in need of a quick character/word count, and like you it's usually a case of firing up word (or in my case, open office). This was actually on my to-do list! (And, to be honest, you've probably done a better job than I would have!)

Mark Aaron Murnahan

Thanks Scott. Yeah, the relatively quick and easy scripts are too easy to forget. I knew I was not the only one with this problem! Ha!

Scott S

Definitely not the only one!

Now to integrate it into one of my clients cms' - Might stop them bitching at me!

Just as a quick addendum:

How bout having the 360 character description limit from digg?

Mark Aaron Murnahan

I thought about Digg, but it seems they have a countdown. I added it anyway. Oh, and a reset button. :-)

Scott S

They do, yes. But then, so does twitter!

I quite often prepare descriptions in notepad/gEdit before submitting digg articles, hence the suggestion :)

Nicely done. Cheers :)

Mark Aaron Murnahan

I thought that, too. A lot of places where characters are limited have counters, but there often seems a reason to have the count right before you submit, and even for things you are not submitting at all. Just another gadget to add to the geek toolset. :-)

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Character Count and Word Count Script With Character Countdown

Simple Javascript Character Counter and Word Counter

Extended Javascript Character Counter, Word Counter, and Etcetera

Add a Character Count to Your Website

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