Typing speed is measured in words per minute or characters per minute. You can choose either of these units depending on the context, your training program or your personal preference.

To help you choose, it's useful to recall the origin of these two units of speed.

Before writing tools were computerized, it was easier to measure the length of a text by counting the number of words rather than the number of characters. Hence, it was natural at the time to express typing speed in words per minute. On average, a word is equivalent to five characters. Many training programs still use this unit to assess performance.

Nowadays, the length of a text is often expressed in terms of characters, because it is more precise. This is notably the case of Twitter messages, which are limited to 140 characters. Moreover, word processing programs now make it easy for us to count the number of characters. Typing speed is more accurate when measured in characters per minute, because it is not based on an average, but rather on the actual number of characters typed.

Typing Pal allows for the use of both units of measurement. You can choose the one that suits you best by selecting the measure unit for speed in group activities or by modifying the measure unit of the results displayed in your Settings . If necessary, you can easily switch back to the original measure unit.