Typing speed test

Typing speed is measured in words per minute, where a word is defined as five characters including spaces. Net WPM counts only correctly typed characters; raw WPM counts everything you typed. The average adult types around 40 WPM, a proficient touch typist 65 to 80, and professional transcriptionists exceed 100.

The five-character word is a convention from the 1900s, when typing speed was measured for hiring and the average English word plus its following space came to about five keystrokes. It is why WPM is comparable across tests and languages, and why a test on German text gives a lower figure than the same typist on English — the words are longer, but the yardstick is not.