How Do You Show the Word Count on Google Docs?

To show the word count on Google Docs, open the Tools menu and choose Word count, or press Ctrl + Shift + C (Cmd + Shift + C on a Mac). A box shows the number of pages, words, characters and characters excluding spaces. Tick “Display word count while typing” to keep a live counter on screen.

How to find the word count on Google Docs, step by step

1. Open your document in Google Docs in a web browser.
2. Click Tools in the menu bar.
3. Choose Word count. The dialog lists pages, words, characters and characters excluding spaces.
4. Close the dialog with OK, or tick “Display word count while typing” first.

Keyboard shortcut

How to show word count while typing

In the Word count dialog, tick “Display word count while typing” and press OK. A small counter appears in the lower-left corner of the page and updates as you write. Click it to switch between words, characters and pages, or to hide it again.

Counting only part of a document

Select the text you want to count, then open Word count. The dialog shows the count for the selection next to the total for the document, for example “210 of 1,532”. The live counter does the same while text is selected, which is useful for checking one answer in a longer application form.

Word count in the Google Docs mobile app

On Android and iPhone, open the document, tap the three-dot More menu and choose Word count. The mobile apps show the counts for the whole document; to count a section, copy it into a word counter.

When the count does not match another tool

Word processors split words slightly differently around hyphens, dashes, numbers and links, so Google Docs, Microsoft Word and online counters can disagree by a few words on long texts. If a teacher or editor sets a strict limit, use the count from the tool they use. To check text outside Docs, paste it into the Word Counter or the Character Counter.