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Chinese Stroke Counter — Every Hanzi, Simplified & Traditional

Chinese character stroke counter — count strokes for any hanzi, traditional or simplified.

  • Runs locally
  • Category Text
  • Best for Removing repetitive cleanup work from everyday writing and operations.
Total strokes
86
Chinese chars
11
Average
7.8
Unknown chars
1
Per-character breakdown
Hover any character to see its stroke count.
李7雷13的8爱10好6是9计4算?汉5字6笔10画8

What this tool does

Free online stroke counter for Chinese characters. Paste any text (simplified, traditional, mixed, or with English / punctuation interspersed) and get per-character stroke counts, the total stroke count, and the average — instantly, with no upload. The lookup table is built from the standard PRC stroke-count list used in name registration and primary-school textbooks; ~3500 of the most common characters are included (covering 99.7% of modern Chinese text by frequency). Each character displays inline with the input, and hovering shows the stroke count as a tooltip. Total / average panel updates live as you type. Useful for: picking a baby name (Chinese naming tradition prizes specific stroke-count combinations under the 五格剖象法 system), checking a brand name for "lucky" totals, preparing handwriting practice sheets where stroke load matters, analyzing classical Chinese passages, and quick reference for Chinese-as-second-language learners. Traditional and simplified forms are both recognized — 體 (traditional, 23 strokes) and 体 (simplified, 7 strokes) each return their own real count, never one mapped to the other. 100% client-side; the table lives in the browser tab and your text never reaches a server. Pair with our Pinyin Converter to get reading + stroke count side-by-side, or the Traditional/Simplified Converter when you want to compare forms.

Tool details

Input
Text + Numbers
The page exposes text boxes, numeric controls, file pickers, or structured inputs depending on the tool.
Output
Live result
The result area focuses on usable output, with copy, download, or preview actions when supported.
Privacy
Browser-side processing
The main tool logic does not call an external API, so inputs normally stay in the current tab.
Save / share
No account required
Open the page and use it; whether results survive refresh depends on the tool.
Performance budget
Initial JS <= 60 KB
No WASM budget is declared, keeping the tool quick to open on mobile.
Best fit
Text · Content Creator
Category and role tags drive related tools, internal links, and quick fit checks.

How to use

  1. 1. Input

    Paste or drop your content into the tool panel.

  2. 2. Process

    Click the button. All processing is local in your browser.

  3. 3. Copy / Download

    Copy the result or download to disk in one click.

How Chinese Stroke Counter fits into your work

Use it to clean, compare, reshape, or extract plain text before it goes into a document, CMS, spreadsheet, or prompt.

Text jobs

  • Removing repetitive cleanup work from everyday writing and operations.
  • Making text easier to compare, paste, publish, or feed into another tool.
  • Working with content locally when the text is private or unfinished.

Text checks

  • Scan for unintended whitespace, duplicate lines, and lost punctuation.
  • For long text, test the first few lines before applying the whole change.
  • Copy the final output only after checking the preview.

Good next steps

These links move the current task into a more complete workflow.

  1. 1 Chinese Pinyin Converter Chinese characters to pinyin — with tone marks or numbers, supports simplified and traditional. Open
  2. 2 Traditional ⇄ Simplified Chinese Converter Traditional ⇄ Simplified Chinese — fast, character-level, no API. Open
  3. 3 Multicultural Name Generator Random names from 11 cultures — Chinese, English, Japanese, Korean, Arabic, Russian + 5 European. Open

Real-world use cases

  • Vetting a baby name against the five-grid stroke system

    A parent has narrowed it to 林 (8) plus two given-name characters and wants the 五格 totals before committing. Paste 林浩然, read off 8 + 11 + 12 = 31 total strokes, and check each character lands on the auspicious counts the grandparents insisted on. Swapping 然 for 宇 (6) drops the 总格 by six and changes the reading entirely, so you compare both spellings in seconds instead of hand-counting on paper.

  • Sanity-checking a brand or shop name before signage

    You are registering a teahouse and the calligrapher quoted by the stroke. Paste the four-character name, see 9 + 12 + 6 + 15 = 42 strokes total, and learn that one character carries 15 strokes on its own. That tells you it will dominate a horizontal plaque and may not shrink well on a 40px favicon, so you pick a lighter synonym before paying for the artwork.

  • Building graded handwriting sheets for first graders

    A primary teacher is assembling a 田字格 practice page and wants to order characters from light to heavy. Paste the week's 20 vocabulary words, sort mentally by the per-character counts (人 is 2, 我 is 7, 警 is 19), and split them across three days so the hardest characters never bunch up. The average panel confirms the sheet sits around 8 strokes per character, the right load for six year olds.

  • Estimating writing time for a classical passage

    A CSL student copies 论语 passages by hand and budgets practice by stroke load, not character count. Paste a 60-character excerpt, read the total of roughly 540 strokes and the 9-stroke average, and learn this passage is heavier than yesterday's even though it has the same character count. You plan 30 minutes instead of 20 and stop underestimating dense literary text.

Common pitfalls

  • Assuming a traditional and simplified pair share a count. 體 is 23 strokes but 体 is only 7. Convert the form first, then count, so you read the number that matches the text you will actually write.

  • Trusting an average that secretly includes punctuation. Tools that count 。、！ inflate the total. Here only CJK ideographs are counted, so verify your character count matches before quoting an average to a teacher or client.

  • Treating a '?' as a zero. A rare variant like an oracle-bone form returns '?' not 0. Do not add it as zero into a five-grid total — look that one character up in 《新华字典》 by hand instead.

Privacy

Everything runs in your browser tab. The stroke table is bundled with the page, and the text you paste is matched against it locally — it is never uploaded to a server and never written to a database. The tool does sync your input into the URL so a "share with result" link reproduces the same counts, so avoid pasting anything private (an unpublished name you do not want indexed) if you plan to share that link.

FAQ

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Made by Toolora · 100% client-side · Updated 2026-07-02