Writers spend hours on the actual craft — but a surprising amount of time also goes to text housekeeping: counting words, fixing formatting, checking readability, cleaning pasted content from PDFs, and converting between formats. The right set of free browser-based tools can cut this overhead dramatically.
Here are 10 free online text tools that belong in every writer's workflow.
1. Word Counter
Every writer needs a word counter. But a good one does more than just count words. TextWonder's Word Counter shows word count, character count (with and without spaces), sentence count, paragraph count, and estimated reading time — all updating in real time as you type.
Useful for: hitting essay word limits, checking blog post length for SEO targets, meeting client deliverable word counts, estimating reading time for newsletter intros.
2. Readability Score Checker
Writing that's hard to read gets abandoned. The Readability Score tool calculates Flesch Reading Ease (higher = easier), Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level (target: grade 8 for general audiences), Gunning Fog Index, and SMOG Index. Paste any text and see your score in seconds.
Useful for: making blog posts more accessible, simplifying technical documentation, checking whether website copy is appropriate for your audience.
3. Title Case Converter
Manually applying title case rules is error-prone. The Title Case Converter instantly capitalizes the correct words and lowercases articles, short prepositions, and conjunctions — no need to remember the rules.
Useful for: formatting article headlines, book chapter titles, email subject lines, and navigation labels.
4. Remove Extra Spaces
Text pasted from PDFs, Word documents, or emails often arrives with double spaces, leading/trailing spaces, or extra blank lines. Remove Extra Spaces cleans it all up in one click.
Useful for: cleaning up copied research, fixing formatting before publishing, standardising text for databases.
5. Remove Duplicate Lines
Whether you're deduplicating keyword lists, cleaning email exports, or removing repeated lines from research notes, Remove Duplicate Lines does it instantly. Choose case-sensitive or case-insensitive matching and preserve the original order.
6. Sort Lines
Sorting lists alphabetically, numerically, or in reverse is a surprisingly frequent task. The Sort Lines tool handles it in one click — paste a list, choose your sort order, copy the result.
Useful for: sorting keyword lists, organizing bibliography entries, alphabetizing glossaries, cleaning data before import.
7. Find and Replace
The Find and Replace tool lets you search for any text (including regex patterns) and replace it with something else across a document. More powerful than a word processor's basic find/replace when you're working with structured text or need to preview all matches before replacing.
8. Character Counter
Where word count tells you how long something is, Character Counter tells you whether it fits in character-limited contexts: Twitter/X (280 chars), SMS (160 chars), meta descriptions (155 chars), email subject lines (50–60 chars), Instagram bio (150 chars).
9. Lorem Ipsum Generator
When you need placeholder text for designs, mockups, or templates, Lorem Ipsum Generator produces clean Latin-style placeholder text in configurable paragraph, sentence, or word quantities.
10. Text Diff Checker
The Text Diff Checker shows exactly what changed between two versions of a document — highlighting additions in green and deletions in red. Invaluable for tracking edits, comparing drafts, or reviewing client-revised copy before accepting changes.
Honourable Mentions
- Sentence Counter — count sentences without manually scanning
- Keyword Density Checker — check if your target keyword appears the right number of times
- Add Line Numbers — number every line for reference in review documents
- Text Repeater — repeat text a specified number of times (useful for test data)
- Extract Emails — pull all email addresses out of a block of text
All tools on TextWonder are completely free, require no account, and run entirely in your browser. Your text never leaves your device.
Frequently Asked Questions
Are online text tools safe to use for confidential writing?
TextWonder processes everything in your browser using JavaScript — your text never leaves your device and is never sent to any server. This makes it safe for confidential writing, client documents, and sensitive data.
Do I need to create an account to use TextWonder?
No. Every tool on TextWonder is completely free with no account, no email, and no signup of any kind.
What is the best free word counter for writers?
TextWonder's Word Counter shows word count, character count, sentence count, paragraph count, and estimated reading time in real time as you type.
Is there a free tool to check writing readability?
Yes. TextWonder's Readability Score tool calculates Flesch Reading Ease, Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level, and other readability metrics for any text you paste.