Something that won’t let me type more than 200 characters!

January 8, 2022 8:06 AM

I need to write a lot of things 200 characters long or less. Is there a little piece of software or a website that will furnish me with a text box and either not let me go over limit or show me where I cross the limit? I’ve a Mac, iPhone and iPad. Thanks!
posted by The Last Sockpuppet to Writing & Language (7 answers total)

Drafts has a word count in the bottom corner of the window for each draft on MacOS, and in the top corner on iPhone and iPad.
It's also a generally wonderful tool for brief text notes.
posted by dttocs at 8:20 AM on January 8, 2022 [1 favorite]

On a desktop computer, I use LetterCount.com.
posted by toastedcheese at 8:39 AM on January 8, 2022

You could create a form in google drive with a single text box. Just set form validation max character count to 200. It will save your responses in a spreadsheet if you want.
posted by i_mean_come_on_now at 9:01 AM on January 8, 2022 [3 favorites]

Most of these recommended text editors have a status bar at the bottom that shows you how many columns exist to the left of the current insertion point position.
posted by flabdablet at 9:20 AM on January 8, 2022

If these are meant to be Tweets, Chirr app will cut the longer thread into multiple tweets for you so you don't have to worry about it. Else, it should have a similar limit.
posted by kschang at 9:23 AM on January 8, 2022

Best answer: This simple html file enforces a limit of 200 characters. I tested it in firefox on linux. It's self-contained so you can download it. The data you type in isn't transmitted anywhere.
posted by the antecedent of that pronoun at 9:55 AM on January 8, 2022 [9 favorites]

Open random text editor like Notepad. Select a fixed width font. Adjust window to 20x10 or 40x5. Type in window, window only holds 200 characters without scrolling. This is trivial in a terminal editor. The real UI/UX problem is fixed width fonts (vs. variable width fonts).
posted by zengargoyle at 12:28 PM on January 8, 2022 [1 favorite]