How to Check Word Count in Microsoft Word, Google Docs and Online: Every Method, Compared
Checking word count in Microsoft Word takes one keyboard shortcut, Ctrl + Shift + G on Windows, Cmd + Shift + G on Mac, and returns the total word count, character count, paragraph count, and line count in a single dialog box. In Google Docs, the equivalent shortcut is Ctrl + Shift + C on Windows and Cmd + Shift + C on Mac, with the added option to pin a live counter to the bottom of your screen that updates as you type. Neither shortcut works when the document is not open in the application, when text lives outside a file, in a CMS editor, email draft, or caption field, or when the text is a PDF. In those cases, an online word counter is the only practical option.
This guide covers every method across all three environments, Microsoft Word (desktop, mobile, and Web), Google Docs (desktop and mobile), and online tools, and explains which method to use based on what you are counting and why.
4 Ways to Check Word Count in Microsoft Word
Microsoft Word offers four distinct methods for checking word count, each suited to a different workflow stage. The status bar is the fastest for a quick glance; the Word Count dialog provides the full breakdown; the keyboard shortcut bypasses menu navigation entirely; and section-specific counting lets you measure any portion of a document in isolation.
Method 1: The Status Bar (Fastest, No Clicks Needed)
The status bar is the horizontal bar that runs along the bottom edge of every Microsoft Word window, showing page number, language, zoom level, and, by default, the current word count. The word count in the status bar updates dynamically as you type: add a word and the number increments in real time; delete a word and it decrements immediately. No button press, no dialog box, no interruption to the writing flow.
The status bar word count works in two modes depending on whether text is selected:
- No Selection: The count shows the total words in the entire document: displayed as "Words: 1,247" in the bottom-left corner.
- Text Selected: The count switches to "Words: 84 of 1,247," showing the selected word count and the document total simultaneously, making section-level checking a one-highlight operation.
What To Do If the Word Count is Missing From the Status Bar: Right-click anywhere on the status bar. A customisation menu appears listing every available status bar element. Locate "Word Count" in the list, if no tick mark appears beside it, click it to enable the display. The count appears immediately without restarting Word.
What the Status Bar Does Not Show: Characters (with or without spaces), lines, paragraphs, and pages are not visible in the status bar by default. Right-clicking the status bar also reveals "Character Count (with spaces)" as an optional display item, which you can enable alongside word count for a dual live counter.
Method 2:The Word Count Dialog Box (Full Statistics Breakdown)
The Word Count dialog box is the complete statistics view. It displays six data points simultaneously: pages, words, characters (without spaces), characters (with spaces), paragraphs, and lines. To open it, go to Review and then into Word Count in the ribbon.
The dialog includes one option that significantly affects the count for academic and legal documents:
"Include Textboxes, Footnotes and Endnotes:" Checkbox, when ticked (the default), Word counts all text in floating text boxes, footnote areas, and endnote areas as part of the total. When unticked, only the main body text is counted. Most university submission word count policies explicitly exclude footnotes from the limit; unticking this checkbox gives you the body-only count that matches the institution's definition.
Important: The "lines" figure in the Word Count dialog represents visual lines of text on screen, not sentences. A single long sentence that wraps across three screen lines counts as three lines. This figure varies with font size, zoom level, and page margins and is not a useful editorial metric, sentence count is the correct proxy for syntactic complexity.
Method 3: Keyboard Shortcut (Fastest For Experienced Users)
The keyboard shortcut opens the full Word Count dialog directly, bypassing the Review tab entirely:
- Windows: Ctrl + Shift + G
- Mac: Cmd + Shift + G
This shortcut works at any point while a Word document is open. If text is selected before pressing the shortcut, the dialog shows statistics for the selected text only. If no text is selected, it shows the full document count. The shortcut functions identically whether the document contains a few hundred or several thousand words, and the count appears in under one second regardless of document length.
Why The Dhortcut Letter is G, not W: Microsoft Word's Ctrl + W closes the document; Ctrl + Shift + W applies word underline formatting. The Word Count dialog was assigned Ctrl + Shift + G to avoid conflicts with these existing shortcuts.
Method 4: Checking Word Count For a Specific Section or Paragraph
Checking the word count of one section without counting the full document is a critical editing technique for academic writers, SEO content editors, and anyone working with documents that have per-section word limits (introductions, abstracts, executive summaries).
The process is identical across all methods above, the only prerequisite is selecting the text before opening the counter:
- Select Text first: Click at the start of the section, hold Shift, click at the end of the section. For non-contiguous selections (multiple blocks that are not adjacent), hold Ctrl on Windows or Cmd on Mac while making each selection.
- Status Bar: The count updates instantly to "Words: X of Y" the moment text is selected.
- Keyboard shortcut: Press Ctrl + Shift + G (or Cmd + Shift + G on Mac) with text selected; the dialog shows statistics for the selected text only.
- Review Tab: Click Review → Word Count with text selected; same result.
Checking word count in Microsoft Word on mobile (iOS and Android): The Word mobile app does not display word count in the status bar. To access it on a phone or tablet, open the document in the Word app, tap the ellipsis (…) or the arrow icon to expand the toolbar, navigate to Review, and tap Word Count. A dialog appears showing words, characters (with and without spaces), paragraphs, and lines, the same breakdown as the desktop dialog, without the footnote inclusion option.
See the full guide on How To Count Words in a PDF for the complete process including how to handle multi-column PDFs and scanned documents.
3 Ways to Check Word Count in Google Docs
Google Docs approaches word count differently from Microsoft Word in one significant way: it offers a live counter that stays pinned to the screen as you type. This removes the need to open a dialog repeatedly while tracking progress toward a word target during a long writing session.
Method 1: Tools Menu (Standard Desktop Method)
Open any Google Docs document in a browser. Click Tools in the top menu bar. Select Word count from the dropdown. A dialog box appears immediately, showing four data points:
- Total pages
- Total word count
- Total characters (with spaces)
- Total characters (excluding spaces)
The dialog also contains a checkbox labelled "Display word count while typing", this is the switch for enabling the live counter described in Method 2. If text is selected before opening the dialog, the statistics shown apply to the selection only, with the total document count displayed alongside.
What Google Docs Word Count Includes and Excludes: By default, Google Docs includes text inside tables in the word count. It does not include text inside comments, suggested changes that have not been accepted, or the headers and footers area in the count. Unlike Microsoft Word, there is no checkbox to include or exclude footnotes and endnotes separately, all footnote text is included in the total.
Method 2: Keyboard Shortcut and Live Counter (Fastest Method)
The Google Docs keyboard shortcut for word count is:
- Windows: Ctrl + Shift + C
- Mac: Cmd + Shift + C
This opens the word count dialog box directly without navigating through the Tools menu. The dialog also shows the option to display word count while typing, which pins a small floating counter to the bottom-left corner of the document editor. it updates in real time as you type and can be clicked to toggle between words, characters, and characters without spaces.
The live counter is the most effective method for writers working toward a specific length target during a draft. The counter stays visible regardless of what section you are editing, which means there is no need to interrupt the writing flow to check progress. To turn the live counter off, go to Tools → Word count and uncheck "Display word count while typing."
Note on the Live Counter and Mobile: The live counter option is only available on the desktop version of Google Docs in a browser. The Google Docs mobile app does not support pinned real-time display.
Method 3: Mobile App (iOS and Android)
To check the word count for a specific section of text in the Google Docs mobile app, use your finger to highlight the section of text you want to count, then tap the three-dot menu icon in the top right corner of your screen, and select Word count. If no text is selected, the count applies to the full document.
The mobile app shows word count, page count, and character count (with and without spaces). It does not offer a live counter that stays pinned to the screen as you type,checking word count on mobile is always a manual tap-and-check operation. If you want to keep the word count displayed on-screen as you type, you will need to use the desktop browser version of Google Docs, as that option is not available on the mobile app for iOS or Android.
Why Microsoft Word and Google Docs Sometimes Show Different Counts for the Same Text
Pasting the same text into Microsoft Word and Google Docs and getting two different word counts is a genuinely common source of confusion, and it is not a bug in either application. It reflects a fundamental difference in how the two platforms handle four specific text categories.
Here is a side-by-side comparison of the key behavioural differences:
The practical takeaway: if you are submitting to a university, publisher, or client who specifies a word count "as measured by Microsoft Word," check your count in Word rather than Google Docs. If the specification says "as measured by Google Docs," use Google Docs. For all other contexts, online publishing, social media copy, email, and general editing, the difference between the two is typically under 1% for standard prose.
When You Need an Online Word Counter Tool Instead?
Microsoft Word and Google Docs are the right tools when your text is already inside an open document. They cannot help in four common situations where an online word counter is the only option that works.
Counting Words in Text that is Not Inside a File
CMS editors (WordPress, Ghost, Webflow, Contentful), email compose windows (Gmail, Outlook Web), social media caption fields, and browser-based form fields have no native word count. None of these environments have a Review tab or a keyboard shortcut. The only way to check word count while drafting directly in these interfaces is to use a word counter tool in an adjacent browser tab, copy the text, paste it into the counter, read the result, and return to the editor.
This is the single most searched reason for using an Online Word Counter: writers are in a context where their word processor is not open, and they need the count right now.
Counting Words on a Mobile Device Without Opening an App
Microsoft Word's mobile app hides the word count behind several menu taps. Google Docs mobile requires the three-dot menu → Word Count sequence. Both require the document to be open in the respective app. A mobile browser tab with Snapzain's Word Counter open is faster: paste the text, read the count in under a second, done, without leaving the app where you are writing.
Counting Words in a PDF
PDF files cannot be opened directly in Microsoft Word or Google Docs without a conversion step that often introduces formatting errors. The reliable method for counting words in a PDF is to copy all text from the PDF viewer (Ctrl+A, Ctrl+C in Adobe Acrobat Reader or a browser-based PDF viewer), paste the copied text into an online word counter, and read the output.
Checking Character Counts for Metadata and ad Copy
When writing SEO meta descriptions, Google Ads headlines, email subject lines, or social media bios, the relevant metric is characters, not words, and you need the character count instantly as you draft, not after you have opened a separate application. Pasting a copy directly into an online word counter that shows character count with spaces gives you the number you need without navigating through a ribbon or toolbar.
For a full breakdown of the character limits that apply across every major platform, see the word count and character count guide.
How to Check Word Count Online: Using Snapzain's Free Word Counter
Snapzain's Free Word Counter is a browser-based tool that counts words, characters (with and without spaces), sentences, paragraphs, and reading time the moment you begin typing or pasting. It requires no sign-up, no file upload, and no software installation. All processing runs in your browser, your text is never transmitted to any server.
The process takes three steps:
- Open the SnapZain Free Word Counter Tool in a browser tab.
- Paste your text with Ctrl+V (Windows/Linux) or Cmd+V (macOS). The word count and all statistics update within one render cycle of the browser, typically under 50 milliseconds.
- Read the output from the statistics panel: word count, character count with spaces, character count without spaces, sentence count, paragraph count, and estimated reading time.
For live tracking while drafting, type directly into the text area instead of pasting. The counter updates with each keystroke, giving you a continuously accurate word count without switching tabs or opening dialogs.
The tool also works on mobile browsers (iOS Safari, Android Chrome) without app installation, open it in your phone's browser, paste or type, and read the count. This makes it the fastest option for mobile word counting, where both Word and Google Docs require multiple menu taps to reach the same information.
A Complete Reference: Every Keyboard Shortcut for Word Count
Frequently Asked Questions
Does Microsoft Word Count Words in the Header and Footer?
No. Text in Word's header and footer sections is excluded from the word count in both the status bar and the Word Count dialog by default. This is consistent with most academic submission requirements, which specify body text only.
Does Google Docs Include Footnotes in the Word Count?
Yes. Google Docs includes all footnote text in the total word count. Unlike Microsoft Word, there is no option to exclude footnotes from the count. If your submission policy excludes footnotes, count the body text separately by selecting it before opening the word count dialog.
Can I Check Word Count in Microsoft Word Online (The Browser Version)?
Yes, but the keyboard shortcut (Ctrl + Shift + G) does not work in Word for the Web. Just like the Word desktop program, Word for the web counts words while you type, and the count is accessible via Review → Word Count in the browser ribbon.
Why Does My Word Count Change When I Export a Document To PDF?
Exporting to PDF does not change the word count of the source document. If a count difference appears, it is because you are comparing the source document's count in Word or Docs against a count taken by copying text from the exported PDF, which often introduces extra characters and spaces at line breaks.
Which Method is Most Accurate For Academic Submission?
Use Microsoft Word's Word Count dialog (Review → Word Count) with the footnote inclusion checkbox set to match your institution's policy, ticked if footnotes count toward the limit, unticked if they do not. Check your institution's word count policy explicitly, as policies differ between departments and between institutions.
