Document Word Counter
Drop one or more documents and get their word counts without opening them. Word (DOCX), PDF, OpenDocument (ODT), RTF, HTML, Markdown and plain-text files are read in your browser; each gets a count of words, sentences and paragraphs, its pages and reading time, and the totals add up across files. The extracted text is shown so you can check exactly what was counted.
- Runs in your browser
- No sign-up
- Free to use
| Document | Words | Sentences | Paragraphs | Pages | Reading time |
|---|
Extracted text (to check what was counted)
How to use Document Word Counter
- Drop documents, up to 20 at a time.
- Read the counts per file and the totals.
- Check the most frequent words and reading time.
- Open “Extracted text” to see what was counted.
Document Word Counter features
Many formats
DOCX, PDF, ODT, RTF, HTML, Markdown, TXT, CSV and subtitles.
Batch counting
Up to 20 files with per-file results and totals.
Language-aware
Uses the browser’s word segmentation, including Chinese and Japanese.
More than words
Sentences, paragraphs, pages, reading and speaking time.
Transparency
Shows the extracted text and notes about scanned PDFs.
Private
Documents are read on your device.
When to use Document Word Counter
- Checking a manuscript or thesis against a word limit.
- Quoting a translation job based on source documents.
- Totalling words across a folder of articles.
- Estimating the reading time of a report.
Document Word Counter FAQ
Why might my count differ from Word’s?
Word processors count slightly differently, for example for hyphenated words, numbers, footnotes and text boxes. This tool counts the main body text; footnotes and comments in DOCX files are included as plain text when present.
Can it count words in scanned PDFs?
Only if the PDF has a text layer. Scanned pages are images; run them through the PDF OCR tool first.
How are pages counted?
PDFs report their real page count. For other formats, pages are estimated at 300 words per page.
Does it work for languages without spaces?
Yes. Where supported by the browser, Intl.Segmenter splits Chinese, Japanese and Thai text into words.
Are old .doc files supported?
No. Save them as .docx first; the old binary format cannot be read reliably in the browser.
Are my documents uploaded?
No. Text is extracted in your browser.
Counting words in documents
Word counts drive many everyday decisions: essay and article limits, translation quotes, submission rules, reading-time estimates. When the text lives in files rather than a text box, counting usually means opening each file in its program. This tool reads the files directly and counts them in one go.
Each format needs its own extraction. Word documents are ZIP packages of XML, read here with mammoth; PDFs are parsed with PDF.js, which recovers the text layer page by page; OpenDocument files are unpacked and their content.xml read; RTF control codes are stripped; HTML is reduced to its visible text. Plain-text formats are decoded with automatic detection of UTF-8, UTF-16 and older Windows encodings.
Counting words is less simple than splitting on spaces. Punctuation, apostrophes, hyphens, numbers and scripts without spaces between words all need rules. Modern browsers provide language-aware word segmentation through Intl.Segmenter, which this tool uses, so Chinese, Japanese and Thai text is counted sensibly alongside English. Sentences and paragraphs are counted from punctuation and blank lines.
Pages are real for PDFs and estimated at 300 words per page for other formats, which matches a typical double-spaced manuscript page. Reading time assumes 238 words per minute, a common average for adult silent reading, and speaking time 150 words per minute. The most frequent words, excluding common short words, give a quick sense of a document’s topics.
The extracted text is shown below the results so you can verify what was counted, for example whether a PDF had a text layer at all. Everything happens in your browser, which makes the tool suitable for unpublished manuscripts and confidential documents.