How to Count Words in Urdu

Method 1: an online Urdu word counter

The quickest way is to paste or type into the Urdu Word Counter. It reads any Unicode letter, mark or digit, ignores invisible joiners that sit inside words and counts runs of those characters as words. The right-to-left editor with a Nastaliq font makes it comfortable to type directly. You also get characters, sentences, paragraphs and reading time.

Method 2: Word or Google Docs

Both programs count Urdu text by spaces, so you can use their built-in counts; see How to Count Words in Microsoft Word and How to Count Words in Google Docs. Ensure the text is Unicode and the proofing language is set to Urdu so the program treats it correctly. In Word, the right-to-left setting for the paragraph must be on to display text correctly, though the count does not depend on it.

Common problems

• Inpage text. Older Inpage files use a legacy encoding. Copy-paste may produce garbled characters or zero words. Convert to Unicode first, or export from Inpage to Unicode.
• Missing spaces. Urdu writers sometimes omit spaces between words because the letters already join visually. The count will be lower than a human’s. Add a space or a zero-width non-joiner inside compounds.
• Extra spaces. Spaces inserted to adjust appearance raise the count. Remove them with Remove Extra Spaces.
• Diacritics. Aerab marks (zabar, zer, pesh) are attached marks and do not change the word count.

Urdu characters, sentences and digits

Characters are counted as Unicode code points, so a word with diacritics has more characters than the same word without; see the Urdu Character Counter. Sentences end with ۔ or ؟; the Urdu Sentence Counter handles them. Urdu digits (۱۲۳) and Western digits (123) are both numbers; see Do Numbers Count as Words?.

Roman Urdu and mixed text

Roman Urdu uses Latin letters, so any English counter works. The Roman Urdu Word Counter is tuned for informal spelling and mixed Urdu–English messages. For regional languages with Arabic-based scripts, such as Sindhi and Pashto, the same Unicode method applies; see all the language tools.

How accurate is the count?

For well-typed Unicode Urdu, the counts from the Urdu word counter, Microsoft Word and Google Docs agree to within a very small margin. If a translation job or publication relies on an exact figure, agree the counting tool with the client in advance and apply the same one throughout.

Frequently asked questions