How to check word count on Google docs

How to check word count on Google docs

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, and how many characters you have, and your page count using the word count tool in Google Docs. Let us see how to check word count on Google docs.

  • To check the Word Count on Google Docs (Desktop), click on Tools –> select Word count.
  • To check the Word Count on Google Docs (Mobile), Tap on the three-dot menu –> tap the Word count option.
  • You can also use the Google Docs shortcut to show the word count in Google Docs, use Ctrl + Shift + C (for Windows) and Command + Shift + C (Mac).

Word Counter – to check word count on google docs

If you want to count the words in your Google Docs document, then “Word counter” will do wonders for you. Depending on whether you’re using a Mac or Personal Computer, or desktop, tablet, or smartphone, there are some different ways to open the word counter.

On a desktop or laptop, you can open the Google Docs word counter using either the mouse or a keyboard shortcut.

How to check word count on google docs (Desktop)

  • Open your 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”.
check word count on google docs
word count google docs
  • 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.
How to check word count on google docs

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 Android or iOS device. Find the vertical three-dot menu that is present at the upper right corner.
How to check the word count on Google Docs on mobile
  • Tap on that menu and tap on the Word Count option.
How to check the word count on Google Docs on android
  • 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 see word count on google docs app

How to check word count for a specific section on google docs?

The word count box for the selected section of the Google Docs document will let you know:

  • Which page the selected text is on.
  • How many words are in the selected text out of the total word count for the document?
  • How many characters are in the selected text out of the total character count?
  • How many characters are in the selected text out of the total character count excluding spaces?

Google Docs Word Count Selection

To check word count for a specific section on google docs,

  • First, you have to highlight the paragraph or section you want to measure the word count. Choose the paragraph to get word count information on just that paragraph.
  • Once highlighted the paragraph, click “Tools” and then “Word Count”. 
  • A pop-up box for Word Count will open now. This word count box will display the number of words for the selected section out of the entire Google Docs document and how many characters out of the entire characters of your document. 
Shortcut to check word count on google docs
Finding Word Count in Google Docs

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 Shortcut 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 include footnotes in word count?

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.

Why you have to check word count on Google Docs?

There are a lot of reasons and benefits to find the word count for Google Docs documents. Some of them are:

  • Word count is one of the best ways to measure the length of your Google Docs document. 
  • It also helps you estimate the overall time for reading.
  • Word count tells you how close you are to finishing your formatting.
  • Letters of recommendation, job letters, and cover letters follow a word count standard

How to close the word counter?

To close the word counter box in Google Docs,

  • Click on the “x” in the top right corner of the word counter box.
  • Or click on the “Cancel” button in the bottom left corner.

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 simply 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 on the checkbox before “Display word count”.
How to show word count on google docs
  • Now the word count will be continuously displayed while typing in the lower-left corner of your Google Docs document.

Word Counter Add-on

Word Counter Add-on is a lite tool for counting characters and words with just a right-click. Word Counter is a simple addon that helps you get the number of selected words in Google Docs via context-menu.

How to check word count on Google Docs using Word Counter Add-on?

  • Install the Word counter chrome extension from the chrome web store.
  • Simply 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 appear to 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 average word length, number of total characters, the number of special characters, and the longest word.

This is about the google docs word count extension.

Word Counter Max For Google Docs Add-on

Word Counter Max is a very powerful and free add-on that can help you to get the word count on even a very lengthy Google Docs document.

Not only that, it also helps you with the below wonderful features

  • You can quickly generate a report for your document.
  • You can generate a reading time estimate.
  • You can able to count words to the cursor position and you can also count the exact number of words for a particular selection.
  • Another interesting point is, that you can also include the footnotes in your word count.

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.

  1. 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.
  2. Click on Add-ons –> Get Add-ons.
  3. Search for “Word Counter Max” and click on the search result Word Counter Max For Google Docs Add-on.
Word Counter Max For Google Docs Add-on

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

Word Counter Max For Google Docs

5. Click on Continue and select the google account.

6. Click on the Allow button –> Done. Now you 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.

How to check word count on Google Docs using Word Counter Max Add-on

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

how to see word count in google docs

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

How to use Word Counter Max add-on in Google Docs

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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 instructions to check word count on Google Docs on Desktop or Mobile in no time!