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Count words across PDF, DOCX, and plain text — in one place

Drop in up to twenty documents and see word count, character count, reading time, and PDF page counts side by side. The parsing runs in your browser, so even a draft you'd rather not share stays on your laptop.

Drag & drop files here

Or click to browse (max 20 files, up to 50 MB each)

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PDF, DOCX, TXT, Markdown — up to 50 MB each, 20 files max.

PDF · DOCX · Markdown · Up to 20 files at once

Why use this word counter?

PDF, DOCX and plain text in one tool

Most online word counters force you to pick — a PDF tool here, a Word tool there, a plain-text counter somewhere else. This one accepts the lot, including Markdown, RST, HTML, JSON, and any other text/* format you've got.

Batch up to twenty documents

Drop a folder of chapter files or a stack of student essays and see per-file stats and a combined total at the same time. The competing tools cap at five — or refuse a batch entirely.

Real PDF page counts

Every other counter estimates pages from word count. This one reads the actual page count straight from the PDF, so a single-image PDF page is still one page, not zero, and a long-line legal document doesn't get inflated.

Live stats — no compute button

Type or paste into the textarea and the word count updates as you go, debounced so typing stays smooth. Flip a setting (Markdown mode, "URLs as one word", reading speed) and the totals recalculate instantly, without re-parsing your files.

Reading and speaking time, your way

Default 200 words per minute for reading and 130 for speaking. Crank it to 300 wpm to plan a skim, or 150 wpm to plan a presentation — both update across every file in the batch.

Copy a summary, or download the report

A one-click clipboard summary if you just want to paste the totals into Slack, or a CSV / JSON export if you'd rather feed the numbers into a spreadsheet or a script.

Why people end up counting words

A 90,000-word thesis spread across twelve chapters

You're a week from your viva. Your supervisor wants the final word count on the dissertation, separating front matter (which doesn't count) from the chapters (which do). Your thesis lives in twelve DOCX files and three PDFs of appendices, and last time you tried to add up the chapter counts in Word they didn't quite match the cover sheet — Word's count includes things you'd rather it didn't.

You drag the twelve chapter files into the page. Each row shows up with its own word count: 8,412 in chapter one, 7,940 in chapter two, all the way through. The aggregate total at the top reads 89,217 — three thousand under the limit. You toggle "Markdown mode" off (these are plain DOCX, no asterisks to strip), copy the summary to your clipboard, and paste the per-chapter breakdown into the email to your supervisor. The PDFs of appendices stay out of the batch — they're not in the count.

You hit Send. Your supervisor replies within the hour: "Looks good." You exhale.

A blog post that has to fit a 1,200-word brief

You write for a marketing client who pays per article, capped at 1,200 words. You drafted today's piece in your usual Markdown editor and you're 90% sure you're under, but the editor's built-in count includes every # heading marker and every **bold** star — so it always reads slightly higher than what the client will actually count.

You paste the Markdown into the textarea on the word counter and flip "Markdown mode" on. The headers and emphasis markers melt out of the count. The number reads 1,184 — fine. You bump up the reading speed to 300 wpm to estimate a "skim time" for the client's social-share blurb, copy the summary, and ship.

The article goes up two minutes later, comfortably inside the brief.

A scanned PDF that wasn't really a PDF

You're proofing a manuscript a client sent over as a "PDF". You drop it in the counter and the row lights up red: "Scanned PDF — no extractable text." That's the answer you needed — there are no words to count because there are no words, just images of words. You email the client back and ask for the original Word file, which arrives twenty minutes later. You drop that into the counter instead, and you're back on track.

The five minutes you didn't spend manually estimating the page count add up over a year of proofreading work.

1

Drop in your documents

Select up to twenty PDF, DOCX, TXT or Markdown files, or paste your text into the editor. Everything is read locally — nothing is uploaded.

2

Read the stats

Per-file stats line the document list and the totals sit at the top. Toggle between "Selected file" and "All combined" to see one or the sum.

3

Copy the summary or export the report

A one-click clipboard summary covers the common case. A CSV or JSON export covers the rest.

  • Your files never leave your browser, so there's nothing on our side to delete.
  • All parsing runs locally on your device. We don't see, store, or transmit your documents.
  • No sign-up, no email, no limits. Drop in your text and read the count.