Word Count in Microsoft Word: Complete Guide

Microsoft Word shows the live word count in the status bar at the bottom of the window. For a fuller breakdown — characters, paragraphs, lines, pages — open the Word Count dialog from the Review tab or press a shortcut.

How to see word count in Word

• Status bar: bottom-left of the document window (always visible)
• Detailed dialog: Review tab → Word Count
• Windows shortcut: Ctrl + Shift + G
• Mac shortcut: Option + Cmd + W (no native shortcut on some versions — use the Review tab)

What the Word Count dialog shows

• Pages
• Words
• Characters (no spaces)
• Characters (with spaces)
• Paragraphs
• Lines

Count words in a selection only

Highlight a paragraph, chapter, or section, and the status bar instantly shows "X of Y words" — the selected count and the document total. This is the fastest way to gauge length while editing.

Include or exclude footnotes

In the Word Count dialog there is a checkbox: "Include footnotes and endnotes." Untick it for the body-only count, which is what most academic submissions ask for.

Add word count to the status bar (if missing)

Right-click the status bar and tick "Word Count." Some users accidentally turn it off and assume it has disappeared.

Word's blind spots

Word does not show reading time, speaking time, or keyword frequency. For those metrics, paste your text into the Free Word Counter or the Character Counter — both give a live breakdown with no install or sign-up. If your document is already a PDF, our PDF Word Counter extracts the text and counts it for you.