My description has five paragraphs but the counter says one; what is going wrong?
Nothing is wrong with your text or the counter; the difference is in what counts as a paragraph. The tool treats a paragraph as a group of lines separated by at least one blank line. If you typed your five lines with a single Enter between each, the counter sees one paragraph of five lines. Put a blank line between paragraphs, or use 'Non-empty lines' if each of your lines is a paragraph.
The same text, two ways
We wrote an Arabic product description of five short points (product description, cotton fabric, several sizes, machine washable, fast shipping) and pasted it into the Word and character counter two ways:
- Each point on its own line with a single Enter between: 5 lines, 5 non-empty lines, and just 1 paragraph.
- With a blank line between each pair of points: 9 lines, 5 non-empty lines, and 5 paragraphs.
- Both ways: 11 words and 5 sentences, because the end of each line ends a sentence.
Words, sentences and non-empty lines did not change between the two. What changed is the line count, since each blank line is a line, and the paragraph count, since a blank line is what separates one paragraph from the next.
Why paragraphs are defined this way
Because a plain line break does not always mean a new paragraph. It may be a heading over some text, a line of verse, a line in a postal address, or a point in a list. If every line break were a paragraph, a three-line address would be three paragraphs. A blank line is the clearest, most widely shared sign that one block of text has ended and another begun, and it is what shows as space between paragraphs when you publish in most editors and websites.
Which number to rely on
- If you were asked for text 'in five paragraphs' meaning separate blocks, put a blank line between each and check the counter says 5.
- If each line is a paragraph in the sense you mean, as with product descriptions written as short points, read 'Non-empty lines' instead of 'Paragraphs'.
- If you see more paragraphs than expected, look for a blank line that crept into the middle of a paragraph when copying from a file or website.
- If blank lines are scattered at random, tidy them with the Whitespace cleaner, then count again.
Things that do not affect the paragraph count
- Several blank lines in a row separate just as one does; they never create extra empty paragraphs.
- A line containing only spaces is treated as blank.
- Text wrapping on screen creates neither lines nor paragraphs; a very long paragraph stays one paragraph however much of the screen it fills.
Common questions
Does an indent at the start of a line change anything?
No. An indent does not start a new paragraph; only a blank line does.
Why are there 5 sentences when I used no full stops?
Because the end of a line also counts as the end of a sentence, alongside full stops, question marks and exclamation marks.