
Word Count on Google Docs is a simple tool to ensure your content has an appropriate length. You can measure the total word count, how many words you have within a section, how many characters you have, and your page count using the word count tool in Google Docs. Let us see how to include footnotes in Word Count in Google Docs and how to check word count on Google Docs.
Table Of Contents
- How to include footnotes in word count Google Docs
- How to check word count on Google Docs (Desktop)
- How to check the word count in Google Docs on Android/ iOS device
- How to check word count on Google Docs shortcut
- What is included and not included in the word count?
- How to show word count on Google Docs?
- FAQs
How to include footnotes in word count Google Docs
Google Docs does not include footnotes in the word count of a document. Each word counter for each app works a little differently and counts words a little differently.
But it is possible with Word Counter Max For Google Docs Add-on to include footnotes in the word count.
How to check word count on Google Docs (Desktop)
- Open the Docs document in which you want to check the word count.
- Find the “Tools” tab at the top of your Google Docs document. Click “Tools” > “Word Count”.

- You can see how many pages you have in your Google Docs, how many total words you have in your Google Docs, how many characters you have with spaces, and how many characters excluding spaces.

This is how to check word count on Google Docs. or How To Put A Word Count On Google Docs
How to check the word count in Google Docs on Android/ iOS device
To check the word count on Google Docs on mobile,
- First, you have to install Google Docs from the Play Store.
- Now, open your document in the Google Docs app on an Android or iOS device. Find the vertical three-dot menu that is present in the upper right corner.

- Tap on that menu and tap on the Word Count option.

- A pop-up box for Word Count will open now. This word count box will display the number of words, number of Characters, Characters excluding spaces, etc, for your Google Docs document.

How to check word count on Google Docs shortcut
To check word count on google docs faster, you can use the shortcut for word count.
Finding your word count is an easy task with the keyboard shortcut: Below are the Shortcuts to check word count on Google Docs
- For Mac, you can use Command + Shift + C to check word count on Google Docs
- For Windows, you can use Ctrl + Shift + C to check word count on Google Docs.
What is included and not included in the word count?
- Google Docs word count usually excludes content that is present on the footers, headers, etc.
- Google Docs Word count ignores different symbols like “>”, “<”, etc.
- It is impossible to check word count without quotes in Google Docs
- But it counts em dashes.
How to show word count on Google Docs?
You can show the word count as you type in Google Docs.
Instead of going to Tools > Word Count each time you want to view and check the word count, you can see the word count in the lower-left corner of your Google Docs document as you write.
To do this,
- Click Tools > Word Count.
- Once the word counter box is opened, click the checkbox before “Display word count.”

- Now the word count will be continuously displayed while typing in the lower-left corner of your Google Docs document.
How to check word count on Google Docs using Word Counter Add-on?
- Install the Word counter Chrome extension from the Chrome web store.
- Select the text in the Google Docs document with the mouse, then right-click and select Word Counter from the context menu.
- A popup will inform you about the number of words in the selected text on the Google Docs document.
- Besides the number of words, it also informs you about the average word length, the number of total characters, the number of special characters, and the longest word.
This is about the Google Docs word count extension.
How to check word count on Google Docs using Word Counter Max Add-on?
Let’s install the Word Counter Max Add-on on Google Docs.
- Navigate to https://docs.google.com/ and click on the + (Blank) to create a new document, or you can open any of your existing Google Docs documents.
- Click on Add-ons –> Get Add-ons.
- Search for “Word Counter Max” and click on the search result Word Counter Max For Google Docs Add-on.

4. Click on the Install button to install the Add-on.

5. Click on Continue and select the google account.
6. Click on the Allow button –> Done. Now you have successfully installed the Add-on.
7. To use the Add-on, Click on the Add-ons –> Select Word Counter Max for Google Docs –> Click on View (Full) or the other two options based on your requirement.

8. It will show you the total word count and other details below.

9. You can also click on the Generate Report link under the Advanced section to generate a report.

FAQs
Does Google Docs count footnotes in word count
Answer: No
Does Google Docs word count include footnotes
Answer: No
Does word count on Google Docs include footnotes
Answer: No
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Google Docs can able to show the word and character count for your entire document or a selected section of the Google Docs document. You learned how to obtain the word count for an entire Google Docs document, or for a selected section of the text, in your browser, or in the Google Doc apps for Android and iOS.
And Voila! Just follow the above steps to know how to see how many words you have on Google Docs on Desktop or Mobile in no time!

I am Rajkishore, and I have over 14 years of experience in the Software Industry. For a long time, I have been using Google Docs, Google Drive, and Google Sheets for my document usage, and I am sharing all the tips and tricks, the challenges I have come across, and their solutions to use Google Docs for your day-to-day use. I hope you will learn from these practical Google Docs tutorials. Read more.