Count words and characters accurately

Choose the right measure

Decide what needs to be counted

• Word count: Useful for article briefs, editorial planning and translation estimates.
• Characters including spaces: Common for form fields, advertisements and platform limits.
• Characters excluding spaces: A separate measure offered by many editors.
• Selected-text count: Isolates a title, description, section or excerpt from the rest of a document.

Record which definition a publisher or tool expects. Two correct totals can differ when one includes spaces, punctuation, headers, footnotes or hidden text and the other does not.

Microsoft Word

Count a document or selection in Word

1. Open the document in editing mode.
2. Select a passage if you need its count rather than the whole document.
3. Read the word count in the status bar. Select that count to open the detailed statistics.
4. Check the required figure. The dialog can show words, characters, paragraphs and lines.

Word for the web may omit content in areas such as headers, footers and text boxes. Open the document in the desktop application when an exact whole-file total is contractually important.

Google Docs

Show words and characters in Google Docs

1. Open the document. Select text first when you only need part of it counted.
2. Choose Tools, then Word count.
3. Review pages, words and characters. Google Docs reports characters both with and without spaces.
4. Enable “Display word count while typing” when you need to monitor a brief as you write.

Unless text is selected, Google Docs counts the document while excluding headers, footers and footnotes.

Website content

Count the text people will actually read

For a web page, work from the editable source or copy the main visible content into a clean document. Navigation, cookie notices, repeated footer text and hidden interface labels can distort a count copied from the rendered page.

• Count the page title, main copy and meta description separately.
• Review headings and link text for clarity rather than adding words to make them longer.
• Keep product specifications, prices and contact details accurate and current.
• Do not paste confidential or unpublished material into an unfamiliar online counter.

SEO guidance

Usefulness matters more than length

Google states that it does not have a preferred word count. A short page can be the best answer to a simple question, while a complex topic may require more detail. Adding repetitive paragraphs or forcing keyword density can make the page less useful.

Different results

Why counting tools disagree

• Hyphenated terms may be treated as one word or several.
• URLs, numbers, emoji and contractions are tokenised differently.
• Some tools include headings, captions, footnotes or comments.
• Line breaks and non-breaking spaces can affect character totals.
• A web-page counter may include menus and hidden accessibility text.

For a strict limit, use the counter supplied by the destination platform. For a shared editorial workflow, choose one counting method and use it consistently.

Need help?

Ask about the page, not only its length

Include the page URL, intended audience, action visitors should take, target search topic and the content you believe is missing. Do not include private customer information or unpublished credentials.