Word Count in Google Docs: Complete Guide

Google Docs has a built-in word counter that shows total words, characters with and without spaces, pages, and characters of a selected section. Most users miss it entirely because it is hidden in the Tools menu.

How to open the word count in Google Docs

• Menu: Tools → Word count
• Windows shortcut: Ctrl + Shift + C
• Mac shortcut: Cmd + Shift + C

A dialog opens showing total pages, words, characters, and characters excluding spaces.

Display word count live while typing

Open the word count dialog, tick "Display word count while typing," and click OK. A small floating counter now sits in the bottom-left corner of your document and updates with every keystroke. Click it to switch between word count, character count, and pages.

Count words in a selected section only

Highlight the text you want to count (a paragraph, a chapter, a section), then open the word count dialog. The counts now show both the document total and the selection total.

What Google Docs counts (and what it skips)

• Counted: body text, headings, footnotes, table cells
• Not counted: headers, footers, image captions, suggesting/comment text

This means a 1,000-word academic paper with footnotes and tables will count slightly differently than the same paper exported to Word. Always check both counters if you are submitting to a strict word limit.

When to use a dedicated word counter instead

Google Docs' built-in counter is reliable, but it does not show keyword frequency, reading time, or speaking time. For those metrics, paste your text into the Free Word Counter or our Character Counter. Both work in any browser, require no sign-up, and give a richer breakdown than the built-in tool.