▷ Count characters in words or pages on a Mac

If you are using Word or Pages on a Mac, you can see the word count of just a part of the document or all of the text. This is how you do it.

Count characters in words on a Mac

To check the number of words in a specific paragraph or text

1. Please select (highlight) the text you want.

2. Go to the Tools menu and choose Word Count.

3. Now, you will get a dialogue showing the number of characters.

To check the word count of the entire Word document

1. Do not select any text (leave nothing selected).

2. Go to the Tools menu and choose Word Count.

3. Now, a dialog box will appear showing the number of characters in the entire document.

Note: These instructions were made in Word for Mac 2011 and they also work in Word for Mac 2016. Please note that the procedure may vary in newer versions.

Count characters on document pages on Mac

To check the word count of a part of your document.

1. Please select (highlight) the text you want to count.

2. Click the View icon (rectangular) in the upper left corner of the window.

   

3. Now, select Show word count.

4. This will display the word count near the bottom of the page.

5. You can also drag the counter anywhere in the document.

To view the word count for the entire document.

1. Do not select any text (leave nothing selected).

2. Click the View icon (rectangular) in the upper left corner of the window.

3. Now, select Show word count.

4. If you click the arrows to the right of the word count, you can select what is displayed. These are the alternatives.

   • The word count

   • Character count: with or without spaces

   • Number of document pages

   • Number of paragraphs in the document