Count the number of characters or words in your Zap fields

Written by Owner

Updated at August 20th, 2025

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Table of Contents

1. Add a Formatter step 2. Set up your transform 3. Test your action

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If you’re working with apps that have character or word count limitations, you can use two transforms in Formatter’s Text action to count how many characters or words are in your data:

Length: counts the number of characters in your data.
Word Count: counts the number of words in your data.

Example

If you are an editor on your social media marketing team, you can use the Length and Word Count transforms to do a pre-check of the marketing copy that your writer’s submit. Formatter can ensure it meets the character and word count limits in your social media apps before you even take a look at the copy, then send them a notification if it does not.

1. Add a Formatter step

In the Zap outline, click the Action step or the plus sign + to add a new action. A dialog box will open.
In the search box, search for and select Formatter. The right sidebar will open to the Setup tab.
Click the Action event field to open the dropdown menu and select Text.
Click Continue to continue to the Configure tab.

2. Set up your transform

Click the Transform field to open the dropdown menu, then select the transform that you want the Zap to perform on your string:
- Length.
- Word count.
In the Input field, manually enter the string you want to transform or map a field from a previous step.
If you’re using the Length transform:
- In the Ignore Whitespace? Field, select True if you want the count to exclude any spaces in your data or select False if you want the count to include all spaces too.
Click Continue to continue to the Test tab.

3. Test your action

Click Test step.
- The Data out tab will display the transform output so you can confirm your string was formatted correctly.
- If the new data is not what you expect, you can adjust the transform settings and retest the step again.

Once you’ve set up your Formatter action, you can use the results in further actions in your Zap.

Count the number of characters or words in your Zap fields

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1. Add a Formatter step

2. Set up your transform

3. Test your action

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