How to Check Word Count in Microsoft Word (4 Ways)

View Word Count in Microsoft Word Documents

by Avantix Learning Team | Updated March 11, 2025

Applies to: Microsoft^® Word^® 2016, 2019, 2021 or 365 (Windows)

You can check or view word count in Word documents in several ways. Although word count is typically displayed in the Status Bar, you can view a Word Count dialog box which displays counters for various items in the selected text. You can display the dialog box using the Ribbon, the Status Bar or a keyboard shortcut. The Word counter will check a document for the number of characters, lines, paragraphs and pages. Word count and other statistics are also available in Word's Properties.

Contents

In this article, we'll review 4 ways to check word count in Word:

• Check word count using the Ribbon
• Get word count using a keyboard shortcut
• Check word count in the Status Bar
• Get word count in document statistics

The Word Count dialog box displays counts for the current selection. If you select an area or section in a Word document and then view word count, Word will display the count for the selected text. This is helpful if you think that a selected range seems to use too many words.

To select the entire document, press Ctrl + A (although total count appears if you simply click in text). You can drag over text you want to count but you can also click at the beginning of a section and Shift-click at the end of a section you want to select. There are many other great ways to quickly select text in Word. Check out the article 14+ Word Selection Shortcuts to Quickly Select Text.

Note that screenshots in this article are from Word 365 but are very similar for previous versions of Word.

Recommended article: How to Quickly Remove Hard Returns in Word Documents

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Check word count using the Ribbon

To check word count using the Ribbon:

1. Select the text you want to count. If you want to count words in the entire document, simply click anywhere in the text.
2. Click the Review tab in the Ribbon.
3. Click Word Count in the Proofing group. The Word Count dialog box appears.
4. Click Close.

Word Count appears on the Review tab in the Ribbon as follows:

The Word Count dialog box appears as follows (depending on the selection):

In the Word Count dialog box, you can turn a check box off or on to include text boxes, footnotes and endnotes in the word count. This is typically left unchecked. The number of lines in the Word Count dialog box represents the number of lines with characters, not the number of sentences. The number of lines in a document will be affected by formatting such as font size and indents.

Get word count using a keyboard shortcut

To get word count using a keyboard shortcut to display the Word Count dialog box:

2. Select the text you want to count. If you want to count words in the entire document, simply click anywhere in the text.
3. Press Ctrl + Shift + G.

Check word count in the Status Bar

When you select text, word count for the selected text should appear in the Status Bar on the bottom left of your screen automatically:

If no text is selected, the count shows the total for the entire document.

If you double-click the word count in the Status Bar, the Word Count dialog box appears.

Although word count typically displays by default in the Status Bar, you can choose options to display. If you right-click in the Status Bar, a pop-up menu appears. If Word Count has been deselected in this menu, it will not appear in the Status Bar.

Get word count in document statistics

Word, character, line, paragraph and page count can also be viewed in document statistics or Properties.

To view word count in document statistics or Properties:

1. Open the Word file.
2. Click the File tab in the Ribbon.
3. Select Info.
4. In the area on the right, under Properties, several statistics appear including word count.
5. To view more information, click Properties. A drop-down menu appears.
6. Select Advanced Properties. A dialog box appears.
7. Click the Statistics tab to view statistics.
8. Click OK.

When you click File and then Info, statistics appear on the right side of the dialog below Properties:

The statistics that appear in this area and in the Advanced Properties are for the entire document, not the selected text.

Conclusion

These strategies are similar in Word Online and Word for Mac.

In the Word Count dialog box, you can also get page, character, paragraph and line count. In Properties, you can also check how long you've been working on a document.

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