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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-06-04T09:17:10+00:00

I got this code for counting the number of words from an html editor.

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I got this code for counting the number of words from an html editor.

(providing htmlData has already been set)
var rawWords = htmlData.replace(/<(?:.|\s)*?>/g, '')
                       .replace(/(\r\n|\n|\r)/gm,' ');
var filteredWords = rawWords.replace(/\[([^\]]+)\]/g,'')
                            .replace(/\s+/g, " ")
                            .replace(/^\s+|\s+$/g, "");

From what I understand, the first line removes the html and then removes any returns.

The next line removes anything in brackets (this is to add notes without affecting the word count) and then removes extra spaces

But if I type this:

Apple


Charlie

Tom

It gives me a word count of 6, not 3. Any idea why? I’m not good at regex!!!!

thanks so much

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    Try this, it’s simple, just splits the whitespace/numbers, and counts the array.

    window.onload = function() {

    // get string as text
    var text = document.body.innerText;

    // replace all non letters (so we don't count 1 as a word)
    text     = text.replace(/[^a-zA-Z\s]/g, '');

    // split on whitespace
    var words = text.split(/[\s]+/);

    // output -- 52
    console.log('numwords', words, words.length); // numwords 52
}

    full example below:

    <html>
<head>
<script type="text/javascript">// script</script>
</head>
<body>

a b c d e f g
1 1 1 1 1 1 1




the quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog.
the quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog.
the quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog.<br><br><br><br><br>
the quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog.
the quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog.

</body>
</html>
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