The most common method used to count the number of words in a Word text as a whole. However, it is also quite common to work with documents and, when counting words, you are interested in counting them by specific parts. That is, you may want to know the number of words in a certain paragraph or page and not all that make up the document as a whole. If this is your case, you should do the following:
- First, prepare the document open on your screen as you did in the previous section.
- Next, select the part of the text that you want to count.
- Then, and always keeping the text selected, you must go to the “Tools” tab and click on “Count Words”.
Again, if your version of Word doesn’t have the “Tools” tab, go to “Review” and then you’ll find the word counter. We show you:
Word Counter Tool
Paste or type your text below:
Number of words:
Number of sentences:
Number of characters:
Number of spaces:
If you are looking for a sentence counter or character counter visit here.
There are many writing programs but, of all of them, Word is undoubtedly the most famous and used of all. This is because this program allows you to present a text in various ways, as well as do almost anything the user needs: download a document in different formats, write in various languages and dialects, translate a text on the fly, and make diagrams and tables. , etc.
In fact, one of the tools that can help us the most when working with Word is the one that allows us to count words and lines in a document. This, which at first may seem secondary, has such important uses as keeping track of the characters you are missing to meet the minimum number of words in a document, distinguishing the types of words you have used, or even the exact number of characters used in a document. If you want to know how to count words in Word, keep reading this One HOW TO article, because we will tell you step by step so that you can learn to use this program a little better.
How to use Word Counter words in Word
Although in principle Word is a Windows program, the truth is that you can find files of this program for both Windows and Apple computers. In addition, in both cases, Word words can be counted in a very similar and simple way. We show you these simple steps:
- The first thing you should do is open a Word document that already has written text.
- Next, go to the top of the screen and find the “Tools” tab.
- Once you have clicked on this tab, several options will be displayed and, among all of them, one called “Count words” will appear.
- When pressed, a pop-up window will open in which various data from the document you are working with will appear.
This is all you need to do to see Word’s word counters. Among the data that you will find in this pop-up window, you will first find the number of pages of the document and, next, the number of words that compose it. Later, additional data will appear, such as the number of characters with spaces and without spaces, the number of paragraphs in the document, and the number of lines.
If you have a more current version, you should know that counting words in Word 2016 is even easier. Instead of looking for the “Tools” button, look for the “Review” tab in the top menu. Next, icons with various options will appear. You just have to click on “Count Words” and wait for the same pop-up window that we have already told you about to open. Next, we show you an image so that you can see it more easily. If you wonder how to search for a word in Word, in this tutorial we explain how to do it step by step so that you can easily replace words in Word.
How to count words in a Word document
This is a tutorial on how to count words in a Word document, it is an extremely simple and straightforward process that requires only two steps.
Word keeps track of your word count as you type your document. And, in addition, it also keeps track of the length of the file and how many paragraphs, lines, and characters it contains.
Microsoft Word provides two methods for this task, an interactive one in the status bar and a more comprehensive one that analyzes the document from the Review menu option.
The steps we show in this article are valid for versions: Word for Microsoft 365, Word for Microsoft 365 for Mac, Word for the Web, Word 2021, Word 2021 for Mac, Word 2019, Word 2019 for Mac, Word 2016, Word 2016 for Mac, Word 2013, Word 2010, Word 2007 and Word Starter 2010.
Remember that until very recently Word was part of the Microsoft office suite and is currently part of Microsoft 365. In the article what is Office 365 and what is Microsoft 365 we tell you all about it.
Word Counter FAQs
How to find out the number of words in a Microsoft Word document in the status bar?
You can find the number of words in a Microsoft Word document by looking at the status bar. The status bar is the bottom area of the Microsoft Word window. There we find various information about the text we are editing.
Among them, by default, we will see the number of words we have typed so far. If you do not see the Word word counter, it is probably disabled. You can easily activate it by right-clicking on the status bar. A menu will open where you can activate it. Also, you can activate the character counter, which is not active by default. In the image below you can see what this menu looks like, with its options.
How to find out the number of words in a Microsoft Word document in the Review menu?
In Microsoft Word, in the Review tab, you can find out the number of words in a document by clicking on Word Count.
This button will launch the Word Count window, which in addition to the word count provides us with a lot of information about the counters in the document, as we will see below.
How to count the characters in a Word document
As we saw before, from the status bar we can activate the character counter. This will be automatically updated as we type and will count the characters in the Word document.
Counting the characters in a Word document with spaces
The character counter in the Word status bar, if enabled, will not display the number of characters including spaces. This means that any spaces between words will count as characters in the document.
This character counters with spaces is displayed both in the status bar and in the Word Count window of the Review tab.
Counting characters in a Word document without spaces
However, if we want to count characters without spaces. However, if we want to count characters without spaces, only the usual characters, we can only display them from the Word Count window.
The usefulness of counting characters without spaces is that it allows us to have a more accurate idea of the size of the document without taking into account all the characters we may have added to increase the readability of the text.
How to count paragraphs in a Word document?
The Word Count window, in addition to the counter to which it gives its name, includes another counter that tells us how many paragraphs the document has. This will give us an idea of the readability of the text. A long text written with few paragraphs is usually a “brick”.
How to count lines in a Word document?
The same window that provides information about counting the characters in the document, paragraphs, and characters. It also shows us the number of lines in the text. With all the information on these counters, you can get an idea of the length of the document, but also of its readability.
Word Counter in Word on a mobile device
On the other hand, although it is not the most common device when working with Word documents, it is worth mentioning that these files can also be used from mobile phones. If you want to count words in Word from your mobile device, follow the steps below:
- Open the Word app on your mobile. If you don’t have it yet, download it.
- Then, open the document whose words you want to count on the screen.
- Once you have the document open, go to the “Edit” screen, which is usually shown with a capital letter A accompanied by a pencil.
- In the dropdown that will open, select the “Start” option followed by “Edit” and finally “Review”.
- At the bottom of the dropdown will appear the option “Count words”. By pressing it, you will receive information related to the number of words in the document, as well as the number of pages, paragraphs, characters, and lines of the active file.
