How to count characters without spaces
Understand what is excluded, and why tabs and line breaks can change a count.
By the ClearCount team · Updated November 3, 2026
Whitespace is more than the space bar
A draft can contain ordinary spaces, tabs, line breaks and less visible whitespace copied from another document. ClearCount’s Without spaces result removes whitespace clusters from the visible-character count. It does not remove punctuation, numbers or emoji. “A B” therefore has 3 characters in the main count and 2 without spaces. “A B” follows the same pattern after line breaks are normalized.
You do not need to edit the draft
Paste your text into the counter and read the two counts side by side. The original text is preserved; the tool calculates the whitespace-free total separately. Removing spaces manually changes your writing and can accidentally join words, which is unnecessary for a count. Download and Copy text preserve your draft rather than producing a stripped version.
Match the rule you were given
Some publishers use “characters excluding spaces” to mean just ordinary space characters. Others exclude every whitespace character. If a form’s own count differs, test a short example with a tab or line break. For a strict limit, confirm the publisher’s instructions and use the form’s own validation as the final check. In normal prose, multiple blank lines and indentation can explain a surprisingly large gap between the two totals.
Put the example into practice with the free character counter.