User guide
ChopWord helps writers write. Log a session, watch your streak build, and see your practice take shape over time.
Why ChopWord
For a lot of us professional or aspiring writers, the mantra that hits closest to home is writers write. Showing up at the page day after day is the whole game, and keeping track of how many days in a row you've done it is a great place to start.
To go further, to produce work at scale, the next step is usually tracking your daily word count. ChopWord is built to remove as much friction from that as possible. You write wherever you like. ChopWord counts, logs, and turns that data into actionable insights for growing your practice.
ChopWord rewards the input, not the outcome. It doesn't judge the quality of your work. It helps you get obsessed with the practice: sitting down, getting in front of the page, working on your craft. We believe process-oriented artists, in the long run, have healthier and more productive relationships with their work.
The app has three tabs along the bottom: Log, Metrics, and Sessions. Your account lives behind the profile icon in the top right.
Logging a session
The Log tab is home base. There are three ways to log, and they all do the same thing: add a session to today's total.
Or scan handwritten pages to receive an estimated word count
A sketch of the Log tab, not a live screen.
Paste your text
If you write on a computer or phone, copy the session's text and paste it into the big text box on the Log tab. ChopWord counts the words and shows you the number. Tap Log session and you're done. (Curious what counts as a word? See How ChopWord counts words.)
Type a number
If the tool you write in already shows a word count, just type that number into the same box. ChopWord logs it as the words you wrote in that session.
Write more than once a day
Write a second or third time? Log each one. As long as your account level allows it, you can add as many sessions as you like, and ChopWord adds them up into your daily word count. Multiple sessions on the same day still count as a single day for your streak.
Missed logging a day? Backdate it
Away from your devices but still got the writing done? Use the Log session for date control next to the Log button to pick the day the writing happened, then log it. That's how you repair a streak.
We log the number, never the writing. Whether you paste text, type a count, or scan a page, ChopWord keeps only the word count for each session. Your actual words are not saved. Everything in your metrics is built from those counts.
Your streak
The banner at the top of the Log tab shows your current streak: how many days in a row you've logged at least one session. Streaks grow as you do. Don't worry if you haven't logged yet today. Your streak holds until the day is over.
Scanning handwriting
Writing longhand? Tap Scan pages on the Log tab, take a photo of your handwritten pages with your phone's camera (or choose an existing photo), and ChopWord, with help from Claude AI, reads the page and gives you an estimated word count. You can attach up to five pages to a single session, check the total, and then log it like any other session.
- It's an estimate. Handwriting varies, so treat the number as a close guide rather than an exact tally.
- Your account level sets how many pages you can scan per day. You'll see what's left on the Log tab and on your Account page.
- The photo and the text read from it are used only to produce the count, then discarded. They are not stored.
Counting pages, and counting them again
Add your photos, then tap Count. Each page you count uses one of your daily scan pages. Once a page has been counted, its estimate shows right on the photo with a green check, and ChopWord never counts it a second time by accident. If you add more pages later, only the new ones are counted.
- Tap Continue when every page has a count to review the total and add it to your session.
- Not happy with a page's count? Tap its green check to count that page again. It uses another scan page, so ChopWord asks first, and you can choose Keep current count instead.
- Removing a page after it has been counted doesn't give its scan page back, since the counting has already happened.
- If a page can't be read, remove or retake it before you continue.
How ChopWord counts words
ChopWord counts words the way most writers expect, with a few simple rules. They're the same whether you paste text or scan handwritten pages.
The rules of the road
- A word is a group of letters or numbers with a space on either side. Hello, 42, and café each count as one word. Any language works.
- Punctuation or symbols on their own don't count. A lone dash, ampersand, exclamation mark, question mark, bullet, asterisk, ellipsis, or emoji sitting between spaces is not a word. So here we are - again is 4 words, not 5.
- Punctuation attached to a word changes nothing. wait, and wait are both one word.
- Hyphenated words and contractions are one word. well-known, e-mail, don't, and 5-10 each count once. An en dash between numbers, like 5–10, also stays together as one.
- An em dash splits words apart. she said — and and she said—and both count said and and separately, and so do two hyphens typed in a row.
- Spaces, tabs, and line breaks all separate words. Extra blank space never adds to your count.
- Numbers count as words. I wrote 1,250 words is 4 words.
| You write | Counts as |
|---|---|
| here we are - again | 4 words |
| Tom & Jerry | 2 words |
| wait ! what ? | 2 words |
| a well-known e-mail | 3 words |
| she said—and meant—it | 5 words |
| * first * second | 2 words |
| Hello 🙂 world | 2 words |
| I wrote 1,250 words | 4 words |
Typing a number instead
If the box holds only a number, like 1250 or 1,250, ChopWord logs that number as your word count. If a number is mixed in with other words, like 1250 words, ChopWord counts the words instead (that's 2). To log a count from another tool, type just the number.
Scanned pages
Scans follow the same rules once ChopWord has read your handwriting. Crossed-out words aren't counted. Headers, titles, and margin notes are. A word that's too messy to read still counts as one, which is part of why scanned counts are estimates.
If your usual tool gives a slightly different total, that's normal. Word processors and counting websites each handle edge cases a little differently. These rules follow what most writers consider a word. If you'd rather log your other tool's number, just type it in. And if a logged count ever looks off, you can edit it from the Sessions tab.
Metrics
The Metrics tab turns your logged sessions into a picture of your practice. It has three sections, Overview, Goals, and History, plus a Show menu in the top right that sets the time range for the main numbers and chart: the last 7, 30, or 90 days, this week or month, last week or month, this year, last year, or all sessions.
Everything below is example data so you can see how it looks. Try hovering over, or tapping, the bars, squares, and circles, just like in the app. Your own numbers will appear once you start logging.
Overview
At the top you'll see three headline numbers:
- Words Yesterday. How much you wrote yesterday.
- Average. Your average words per day over the range you picked in Show. Pick 30 days and it reads "30-Day Average."
- Longest Streak. Your longest run of consecutive writing days, and whether it's still going.
Example numbers. Yours update as you log.
Daily totals
A bar for every day shows how many words you wrote in total. The amber line is your 7-day moving average, which smooths out the ups and downs so you can tell what's really going on: have you plateaued, are you pushing up to a new level, or are you starting to slip and need to knuckle down?
If you've set a word count goal, it shows up as a dotted line. When you change your goal, the line steps up or down on the day you changed it, so the past isn't rewritten.
Hover over or tap a day to see its details. Last 30 days shown.
Writing calendar
A grid of the last 26 weeks, one square per day, with a column for each week. The darker the square, the more you wrote that day. It's a quick way to spot which days of the week and which months are your most productive. It always shows the same 26 week window and is not impacted by your Show toggle.
Hover over or tap any square. The panel scrolls sideways on small screens.
Streak tracker
A month-at-a-time calendar of how your streaks were built. Every day you wrote is a green circle, and circles on back-to-back days are joined together. A day you missed gets a faint red ✕. Your single longest streak is drawn as one solid bar so it stands out. Use the arrows to browse other months. A "day" counts as written when you've logged at least one session.
Hover over or tap a day. In the app, the arrows move between months.
Weekly goal hit-rate
For each recent week, a bar shows how your days measured up against your goal: hit (at or above your goal), close (80% or more of it), or missed. The percentage on top is how many of that week's days hit the goal. Small ↑ and ↓ markers show the weeks when you changed your goal. Each day is judged against the goal that was in effect on that day, so if you change your goal mid-week, the days before the change count against the old goal and the days after it against the new one.
Hover over or tap a bar. Shows the last 8 full weeks.
Word counts by session or day
A look at how big your writing tends to be. Your sessions are grouped into six size ranges, and the ranges adjust automatically to fit your own writing, so the chart is useful whether your sessions run a few hundred words or many thousands. Use the Word counts by menu to switch between Session (each logged session on its own) and Day (each day's total across all its sessions, leaving out days you didn't write). This looks at your career writing data and is not impacted by your Show toggle.
Hover over or tap a bar.
Goals
On the Goals section, set a daily word count goal: a target for how many words you want to write each day. Change it whenever your practice changes. ChopWord remembers when each goal was in effect, so every chart judges each day against the goal you actually had that day.
Below the goal, you'll see how many days in your chosen range were At / Above your goal, Close (80% or more of your goal), or a Miss.
Hover over or tap a slice.
History
The History section lists your daily totals in a table: the date, total words, the goal in effect that day, and your 7-day average. It's the plain numbers behind the charts.
| Date | Total words | Goal | 7-day avg |
|---|
The most recent days first.
Sessions
The Sessions tab lists every individual session you've logged: the date, the time you logged it, and the word count. Use the Show menu in the top right to look at just today or all dates.
This is also where you fix mistakes. If something was logged wrong, or landed on the wrong day, you can edit or delete it. And if you forgot to log a session entirely, head back to the Log tab, add your text, number, or scan, set the Log session for date to the day it happened, and log it.
| Date | Time logged | Word count | Actions |
|---|
Edit and Delete appear on each row in the app.
Your account
Tap the profile icon in the top right to open your account.
- Account level and limits. Different account levels allow different numbers of logged sessions per day and different numbers of scan pages per day. Your level and what you have left today are shown here.
- Email preferences. Choose whether you'd like to get ChopWord news and offers. Account emails, like password resets, are always sent.
- Export your metrics. Download a CSV of your daily word totals, session counts, 7-day averages, and goal status, for the last 7, 30, or 90 days or all time. Open it in a spreadsheet, or drop it into an AI assistant to look at your month alongside the other things you're working on. It's your data, your practice, and we want you to be able to do whatever you need with it.
- Change your password. Forgot it instead? Use Forgot password? on the log in screen and we'll email you a reset link.
- Delete your account. This permanently removes your account and everything associated with it: sessions, word counts, and goals. It can't be undone.
Say hello
Ideas, concerns, questions, suggestions? Interested in partnering with us? Or just want to say hi and trade thoughts on getting those word counts up? Drop us a note at info@gochopword.com.
We're a small team based in Detroit. We love writing, we love the craft, and we love the daily search for kaizen, small steady improvement, in our work. We're always glad to connect with like-minded artists out in the wild. Thanks for writing with us.