French Word Counter
This French word counter counts words the way Microsoft Word does, skips the spaced punctuation French puts before ! ? : and inside « », and adds the signes and feuillets French publishers pay by.
- Free, no sign-up
- Counted in your browser, nothing sent
- Opens .docx, .pdf and .epub
- Signes and feuillets included
- Words (mots)
- 0
- Characters with spaces (signes)
- 0
- Feuillets (1,500 signes)
- 0
- Reading time
- 0 min
- Characters without spaces
- 0
- Sentences
- 0
- Paragraphs
- 0
- Feuillets (1,300 signes, CNL)
- 0
- Reading aloud
- 0 min
Spaced punctuation is never a word here. Counters that split on spaces would say 0.
What counts as a word in French
French looks simple to count until you meet apostrophes, hyphens and spaced punctuation. Here is how this counter treats each case, next to the optional split-elision mode and the result you get from counters that just split on spaces.
| Text | This counter | Elisions split | Space-splitting counters |
|---|---|---|---|
| l'homme | 1 | 2 | 1 |
| aujourd'hui, presqu'île | 1 each | 1 each | 1 each |
| c'est-à-dire | 1 | 2 | 1 |
| peut-être, arc-en-ciel, dit-il | 1 each | 1 each | 1 each |
| Bonjour ! Ça va ? | 3 | 3 | 5 |
| « Oui » dit-il. | 2 | 2 | 4 |
| 1 000 euros (with a narrow space) | 2 | 2 | 3 |
| vingt et un / vingt-et-un | 3 / 1 | 3 / 1 | 3 / 1 |
Why the spaced punctuation matters. French typography puts a non-breaking space before ; : ! ? and inside « » (the Imprimerie nationale's rules; Quebec's OQLF is a little lighter). A counter that splits on spaces sees each of those marks as a word. When we tried three of the top-ranking French counters on October 19, 2026, all three said « Bonjour ! Ça va ? » had 5 words. It has 3. In dialogue, every pair of « » adds two more.
Apostrophes. Microsoft Word counts l'homme as one word, and so do current versions of the Trados translation software, as Paul Filkin's tests show. Older Trados counted it as two, and some teachers still do, so the counter has a switch for that. Words that are whole with their apostrophe, like aujourd'hui or presqu'île, never split. Both the straight ( ' ) and curly ( ’ ) apostrophe work.
Hyphens. Joined words count once, as in Word: peut-être, arc-en-ciel, a-t-il. Numbers written the 1990-reform way (vingt-et-un) are therefore one word; the traditional vingt et un is three.
Signes and feuillets: how French publishers count
French publishing and literary translation are measured in characters, not words. A signe is one character, spaces and punctuation included (signes espaces compris).
- A traditional feuillet is a typed page of 25 lines of 60 signes: at most 1,500 signes, says the literary translators' association ATLF. Real pages with short lines and dialogue hold fewer, so a computer count gives 15% to 30% fewer feuillets. Contracts often add about 15% to make up for it.
- The Centre national du livre uses 1,300 signes when counting by computer, and since July 1, 2025 its grants require at least €24 per feuillet for the translator.
- The ATLF's 2025 survey put the average at €21.90 per 1,500 signes, unchanged since 2023.
Worked example, counted with this tool
We ran Jules Verne's Le Tour du monde en quatre-vingts jours through the counter: 67,622 words and 416,832 signes, which is 278 feuillets of 1,500 or 321 of 1,300. That is about 243 words per feuillet. A translation of the same length into French would cost about €6,090 at the ATLF average, or €7,700 at the CNL minimum. Silent reading time: a little over five hours.
In French Word, the count is under Révision → Statistiques. This one-minute video, in French, shows how to find it:
How much longer is French than English?
Less than people think, in words. A 2019 review of reading studies by Marc Brysbaert (Journal of Memory and Language) found that 1,000 English words become about 1,062 French words, roughly 6% more.
In characters the gap is wider, because French words are longer. That is what matters for a book's page count or a button label. For short interface strings the W3C advises leaving room for 30% or more.
The same study gives French reading speeds of 214 words a minute read silently and 180 read aloud. The counter uses those numbers for its reading times.
FAQ
French word count questions
Does l'homme count as one word or two?
One, the way Microsoft Word and current Trados count it. If your teacher or client counts elisions separately (l' + homme), tick “Count l', d', qu' as separate words” and the total updates.
Does ! or ? count as a word in French?
No. French puts a space before ! ? : ; and inside « », and many counters wrongly count those marks as words. This counter never does.
How many signes is a feuillet?
A traditional feuillet is 25 lines of 60 signes, so at most 1,500 signes including spaces. The Centre national du livre uses 1,300 signes when counting by computer.
How many words is 1,500 signes?
It depends on the text. Verne's Le Tour du monde en quatre-vingts jours averages 243 words per 1,500 signes. Paste your own text and divide words by feuillets to see your ratio.
How much does it cost to translate a feuillet?
For literary translation into French, the ATLF's 2025 average was €21.90 per 1,500 signes, and the CNL requires at least €24 per feuillet for the books it funds. Business translation is usually priced per word: the SFT's 2026 survey found a median of €0.14.
Why does Word give a different count?
Word can count a free-standing punctuation mark as a word (Paul Filkin's tests caught it counting a lone ellipsis), and French spacing leaves « » ! ? standing alone. This counter matches Word on elisions and hyphens but never counts lone punctuation.
Is my text sent to a server?
No. Counting happens in your browser, for pasted text and for files. Nothing is uploaded or stored.
Can I count a PDF or Word document?
Yes. Open a .docx, .pdf, .epub or .txt file and the counter reads its text in your browser. A scanned PDF has no text to read; run it through OCR first.
Working with French text
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