# string-width > Get the visual width of a string - the number of columns required to display it Some Unicode characters are [fullwidth](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halfwidth_and_fullwidth_forms) and use double the normal width. [ANSI escape codes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ANSI_escape_code) are stripped and doesn't affect the width. Useful to be able to measure the actual width of command-line output. ## Install ``` $ npm install string-width ``` ## Usage ```js const stringWidth = require('string-width'); stringWidth('a'); //=> 1 stringWidth('古'); //=> 2 stringWidth('\u001B[1m古\u001B[22m'); //=> 2 ``` ## Related - [string-width-cli](https://github.com/sindresorhus/string-width-cli) - CLI for this module - [string-length](https://github.com/sindresorhus/string-length) - Get the real length of a string - [widest-line](https://github.com/sindresorhus/widest-line) - Get the visual width of the widest line in a string ---

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