Word and page count

View Word Count in Microsoft Word Documents

by Avantix Learning Team | Updated May 10, 2022

Applies to: Microsoft^® Word^® 2013, 2016, 2019, 2021 or 365 (Windows)

You can 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 can be displayed 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 Properties.

The Word Count dialog box shows the number of pages, words, characters (with and without spaces), paragraphs and lines in your document. The dialog box displays counts for the current selection.

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

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To select the entire document, press Ctrl + A (although total count appears if you simply click in text). You can also triple-click in a paragraph or click at the beginning of a selection and Shift-click at the end of a selection. If you want to select non-adjacent or non-contiguous sections of text, press Ctrl and drag over areas of text. 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 in Word 2013, 2016 and 2019.

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.

Vword 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.

Check word count using the Ribbon

To check word count using the Ribbon:

1. Click the Review tab in the Ribbon.
2. Click Word Count in the Proofing group. The Word Count dialog box appears.
3. Click Close.

Word Count appears on the Review tab in the Ribbon:

Check word count using a keyboard shortcut

You can also display the Word Count dialog box by pressing Ctrl + Shift + G.

View 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.

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Melissa has a document that begins with a title page. She wants the pages numbered beginning with 1, but that is actually the second page of the document. (The title page isn’t counted in the page count.) She got the page numbering to start correctly for her first page, but her footer now says, «Page 1 of 80,» «Page 2 of 80,» etc. It should only show 79 pages, again because of the title page. Melissa wonders how she can get the total page count, as shown in the footer, to be correct.

The type of page numbers that Melissa is working with are generally called «X of Y» page numbers. The X represents the current page numbers, while Y represents the total. You generally construct this type of page number in one of two ways. First, you can create your own page numbers in this way by using field codes. Assuming you already know how to add field codes to your document, the finished code would look something like this:

Page { PAGE } of { NUMPAGES }

Once collapsed, the first field code displays the current page number and the second displays the total number of pages in the document. This brings us to the second way to insert the «X of Y» page numbers—using the pre-defined page number formats in Word.

You insert these by using the Page Number tool, which can appear on various ribbon tabs. (Most notably it appears on the Insert tab of the ribbon, in the Header & Footer group, and if you are working within a header or footer, on the Design tab of the ribbon, in the Header & Footer group.) The choices presented by the Page Number tool include a Page X of Y group that provides different ways to insert the formatted page number. When you make one of these choices, the result is a field similar to the following:

Page { PAGE * Arabic * MERGEFORMAT } of { NUMPAGES * Arabic * MERGEFORMAT }

This field code looks much longer than the handcrafted one presented earlier, but it is essentially the same; it just has a few switches added for each of the field codes.

Melissa’s page layout most likely includes a section break between the title page and the first real page of the document. This assumption seems appropriate since Melissa indicated that she was able to basically suppress (hide) the page numbers on the title page and have the first real page start with page 1. The problem is that the field codes use the NUMPAGES field to get the desired «X of Y» type of page numbers. If your document has only two sections in it (one for the title page and the other for the rest of the document) you can simply change the NUMPAGES field to the SECTIONPAGES field. This field returns the total number of pages in the section (the main body of the document) instead of the total page count for the document. Your field code would, essentially, look like this:

Page { PAGE } of { SECTIONPAGES }

You can make the change by simply positioning the insertion pointer in the footer, next to the page numbers, and pressing Alt+F9. This displays all the field codes in the document instead of the field code results. Just make the change to the second field, replacing the letters «NUM» with «SECTION». Press Alt+F9 again, and your page numbering should be correct, showing Page 1 of 79.

This approach will not work, however, if you have more than the single section break in your document. In that case you’ll need to simply make a bit more complex change to the field codes used for the page number. Follow these steps:

1. Position the insertion point just before the Y page number. At this point the field is probably highlighted automatically by Word.
2. Delete the Y page number field.
3. Press Ctrl+F9. Word inserts an empty set of field code braces.
4. Type an equal sign and a space.
5. Press Ctrl+F9 again. Word inserts another empty set of field code braces.
6. Type NUMPAGES and a space.
7. Position the insertion point just between the final two right braces.
8. Type a minus sign and a 1. Your field code for the Y page number should now look very similar to this:

{ = { NUMPAGES } - 1 }

9. Press Shift+F9 to collapse the fields.

This approach works because you are subtracting 1 (the length of the title page) from the total number of pages in the document. Thus, you end up with Page 1 of 79.

The two approaches discussed so far work great if you are going to be modifying the document and know that the length of your main body will change over time. If this assumption is not correct—if your document is static and it will never have less or more than 79 pages—then you can skip messing with the field code and simply type a static page count for the Y page number. (Just make sure you delete the field code for the Y page number first.)

Author Bio

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. Learn more about Allen…