How Do You Get Word Count on Pages

Apple Pages keeps the word count in a place most people never look. There is no button in the toolbar and nothing in the Edit menu. The figure lives in the footer of the document window, and it can be switched to a permanent counter that follows you as you write.

Where the counter actually is

Open any document and look at the very bottom of the window, in the centre of the status strip. You will see a small word count such as 1,204 words or, on a page with a selection active, a fraction like 312 of 1,204 words.

Click that number and a pop up appears with the full breakdown. Alongside words it reports characters, characters excluding spaces, paragraphs, pages and lines. This is the fastest way to check a document without touching a menu.

Showing the count while you write

The footer number is passive, and passive numbers get ignored. To keep the count visible all the time, open the View menu and choose Show Word Count. On newer versions of Pages the option sits under View then Show Word Count, and once enabled it appears in the toolbar area rather than the footer.

If you would rather watch it in the footer, there is a preference. Go to Pages then Settings, open the General tab and tick the box for Show word count in the footer.

Counting only part of the document

Highlight a paragraph, a section or a table and the footer figure changes to a fraction. The first number is the selection and the second is the whole document. This is how you check whether a single section meets a limit, and it works for a non contiguity free approach: select each section in turn and note the figure.

A caution about tables and text boxes

Pages counts text in tables and text boxes but reports it separately in the pop up panel. If a document mixes a body of prose with a large table, the footer total may not match the figure your teacher or editor is checking with their own tool. When in doubt, copy the body text into a plain counter and compare.

The shortcut worth remembering

There is no default keyboard shortcut for the count panel, which is why so many people never find it. Add one through System Settings, Keyboard, Keyboard Shortcuts, App Shortcuts. Name the menu item exactly Show Word Count and assign something you will actually use.

If you only remember one thing: the number at the bottom of the window is clickable. Everything else follows from that click.