How to Count Words in Google Docs

Open the word count

1. Open your document in Google Docs.
2. Click Tools, then Word count, or use the shortcut.
3. Read pages, words, characters and characters excluding spaces.
4. Tick Display word count while typing to pin a counter at the bottom left.

Counting a selection

Highlight the text you want to measure and open the dialog again: it shows the count for the selection alongside the total. This is the way to exclude a reference list or a title page. Footnotes can be included by ticking the footnote option in the dialog.

Differences to expect

Google Docs treats an em dash as a separator, so a document with many unspaced em dashes will show more words than the same document in Word. See How Google Docs Counts Words for more details. For a second opinion, paste the text into the Word Counter; to convert a count to pages, use the Words to Pages Converter converter.

Counting on mobile

In the Google Docs app, open the menu, tap Word count and read the same figures. On phones, the live display is not available, so check at the end of a writing session.

Try it yourself

Put the numbers above to work with these free tools:

Frequently asked questions