Count textarea characters

Question

I am developing a character count for my textarea on this website. Right now, it says NaN because it seems to not find the length of how many characters are in the field, which at the beginning is 0, so the number should be 500. In the console in chrome developer tools, no error occur. All of my code is on the site, I even tried to use jQuery an regular JavaScript for the character count for the textarea field, but nothing seems to work.

Please tell me what I am doing wrong in both the jQuery and the JavaScript code I have in my contact.js file.

$(document).ready(function() {
    var tel1 = document.forms["form"].elements.tel1;
    var tel2 = document.forms["form"].elements.tel2;
    var textarea = document.forms["form"].elements.textarea;
    var clock = document.getElementById("clock");
    var count = document.getElementById("count");

    tel1.addEventListener("keyup", function (e){
        checkTel(tel1.value, tel2);
    });

    tel2.addEventListener("keyup", function (e){
        checkTel(tel2.value, tel3);
    });

    /*$("#textarea").keyup(function(){
        var length = textarea.length;
        console.log(length);
        var charactersLeft = 500 - length;
        console.log(charactersLeft);
        count.innerHTML = "Characters left: " + charactersLeft;
        console.log("Characters left: " + charactersLeft);
    });​*/

    textarea.addEventListener("keypress", textareaLengthCheck(textarea), false);
});

function checkTel(input, nextField) {
    if (input.length == 3) {
        nextField.focus();
    } else if (input.length > 0) {
        clock.style.display = "block";
    } 
}

function textareaLengthCheck(textarea) {
    var length = textarea.length;
    var charactersLeft = 500 - length;
    count.innerHTML = "Characters left: " + charactersLeft;
}

Answer 1

This code gets the maximum value from the maxlength attribute of the textarea and decreases the value as the user types.

<DEMO>

var el_t = document.getElementById('textarea');
var length = el_t.getAttribute("maxlength");
var el_c = document.getElementById('count');
el_c.innerHTML = length;
el_t.onkeyup = function () {
  document.getElementById('count').innerHTML = (length - this.value.length);
};

<textarea id="textarea" name="text"
 maxlength="500"></textarea>
<span id="count"></span>

Answer 2

$("#textarea").keyup(function(){
  $("#count").text($(this).val().length);
});

The above will do what you want. If you want to do a count down then change it to this:

$("#textarea").keyup(function(){
  $("#count").text("Characters left: " + (500 - $(this).val().length));
});

Alternatively, you can accomplish the same thing without jQuery using the following code. (Thanks @Niet)

document.getElementById('textarea').onkeyup = function () {
  document.getElementById('count').innerHTML = "Characters left: " + (500 - this.value.length);
};

Answer 3

var maxchar = 10;
$('#message').after('<span id="count" class="counter"></span>');
$('#count').html(maxchar+' of '+maxchar);
$('#message').attr('maxlength', maxchar);
$('#message').parent().addClass('wrap-text');
$('#message').on("keydown", function(e){
	var len =  $('#message').val().length;
	if (len >= maxchar && e.keyCode != 8)
		   e.preventDefault();
	else if(len <= maxchar && e.keyCode == 8){
		if(len <= maxchar && len != 0)
	   		$('#count').html(maxchar+' of '+(maxchar - len +1));
	   	else if(len == 0)
	   		$('#count').html(maxchar+' of '+(maxchar - len));
	}else
		 $('#count').html(maxchar+' of '+(maxchar - len-1)); 
})

<script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/2.1.1/jquery.min.js"></script>
<textarea id="message" name="text"></textarea>

Answer 4

⚠️ The accepted solution is outdated.

Here are two scenarios where the keyup event will not get fired:

1. The user drags text into the textarea.
2. The user copy-paste text in the textarea with a right click (contextual menu).

Use the HTML5 input event instead for a more robust solution:

<textarea maxlength='140'></textarea>

JavaScript (demo):

var textarea = document.querySelector("textarea");

textarea.addEventListener("input", function(){
    var maxlength = this.getAttribute("maxlength");
    var currentLength = this.value.length;

    if( currentLength >= maxlength ){
        console.log("You have reached the maximum number of characters.");
    }else{
        console.log(maxlength - currentLength + " chars left");
    }
});

And if you absolutely want to use jQuery:

$('textarea').on("input", function(){
    var maxlength = $(this).attr("maxlength");
    var currentLength = $(this).val().length;

    if( currentLength >= maxlength ){
        console.log("You have reached the maximum number of characters.");
    }else{
        console.log(maxlength - currentLength + " chars left");
    }
});

Answer 5

For those wanting a simple solution without jQuery, here's a way.

textarea and message container to put in your form:

<textarea onKeyUp="count_it()" id="text" name="text"></textarea>
Length <span id="counter"></span>

JavaScript:

<script>
function count_it() {
    document.getElementById('counter').innerHTML = document.getElementById('text').value.length;
}
count_it();
</script>

The script counts the characters initially and then for every keystroke and puts the number in the counter span.

Martin

Answer 6

    $(document).ready(function(){ 
    $('#characterLeft').text('140 characters left');
    $('#message').keydown(function () {
        var max = 140;
        var len = $(this).val().length;
        if (len >= max) {
            $('#characterLeft').text('You have reached the limit');
            $('#characterLeft').addClass('red');
            $('#btnSubmit').addClass('disabled');            
        } 
        else {
            var ch = max - len;
            $('#characterLeft').text(ch + ' characters left');
            $('#btnSubmit').removeClass('disabled');
            $('#characterLeft').removeClass('red');            
        }
    });    
});