Counting words in a PDF isn’t as straightforward as in Word or Google Docs—there’s no built-in word count button. Whether you’re checking an assignment meets requirements, verifying a contract’s length, or analyzing document content, you’ll need to use specific techniques or tools to get an accurate word count from PDF files.

This guide covers five reliable methods to count words in any PDF document, from free options to professional tools.

Method 1: Google Docs (Free)

The easiest free method is uploading your PDF to Google Drive and opening it with Google Docs:

Steps:

  1. Upload your PDF to Google Drive
  2. Right-click the file and select “Open with” → “Google Docs”
  3. Google automatically converts the PDF to an editable document
  4. Press Ctrl+Shift+C (Windows) or Cmd+Shift+C (Mac) for word count
  5. Or go to Tools → Word Count

Advantages:

  • Completely free
  • Works directly in your browser
  • Also performs OCR on scanned PDFs automatically
  • Preserves most formatting

Limitations:

  • Requires a Google account
  • Complex layouts may not convert perfectly
  • Multi-column documents may paste in wrong order

Method 2: Microsoft Word (Free)

Microsoft Word can open and convert PDFs directly:

Steps:

  1. Open Microsoft Word
  2. Go to File → Open and select your PDF
  3. Word will convert the PDF to an editable document
  4. Go to Review → Word Count to see the count

Advantages:

  • Works with most text-based PDFs
  • No need for additional software if you have Word
  • Preserves more formatting than copy-paste

Limitations:

  • Requires Microsoft Word (not free for everyone)
  • Complex PDFs may not convert perfectly
  • Doesn’t work with scanned/image-based PDFs without OCR

Method 3: Adobe Acrobat Pro (Paid)

Adobe Acrobat Pro offers built-in word counting:

Steps:

  1. Open your PDF in Adobe Acrobat Pro ($22.99/month subscription)
  2. Go to Edit → Select All
  3. View the word count in the document properties

Advantages:

  • Most accurate for complex PDFs
  • Handles multi-column layouts correctly
  • Professional tool with many PDF features

Limitations:

  • Requires paid subscription ($22.99/month)
  • Adobe Reader (free version) doesn’t have this feature
  • Overkill if you only need occasional word counts

Note: The free Adobe Acrobat Reader does NOT show word count directly.

Method 4: Online Tools (Free)

Several free online tools can count words when you copy text from a PDF:

Using LetterCounter.org:

  1. Open your PDF
  2. Select and copy the text (Ctrl+A, then Ctrl+C)
  3. Visit LetterCounter.org
  4. Paste the text into the text area
  5. Get instant word, character, and sentence counts

Other online options:

  • PDFWordCount.com (upload PDF directly)
  • Countwordsworth.com
  • Any online word counter that accepts pasted text

Advantages:

  • No software installation required
  • Works on any device with a browser
  • Often provide additional metrics (reading time, character count)
  • Free to use

For PDFs that allow text selection, this method is fast and accurate.

Method 5: Copy-Paste to Any Word Counter

The simplest method for text-based PDFs is copying content directly:

Steps:

  1. Open the PDF in any PDF reader
  2. Press Ctrl+A (or Cmd+A) to select all text
  3. Press Ctrl+C (or Cmd+C) to copy
  4. Paste into Word, Google Docs, or an online word counter
  5. View the word count

Advantages:

  • Works with any PDF reader
  • Quick and simple
  • No file conversion needed

Limitations:

  • Formatting is lost
  • Multi-column layouts may paste in wrong order
  • Doesn’t work with scanned/image-based PDFs

Dealing with Scanned PDFs (Image-Based)

Scanned PDFs contain images of text, not actual text data. None of the above methods work directly because there are no text characters to count.

Solution: OCR (Optical Character Recognition)

Scanned PDFs require OCR processing first before you can count words.

Free OCR options:

  1. Google Docs: Upload the scanned PDF to Google Drive, open with Google Docs—it automatically performs OCR
  2. OneNote: Paste or insert the PDF page, right-click, select “Copy Text from Picture”
  3. Online OCR tools: OnlineOCR.net, OCR.space, NewOCR.com

Steps for Google Docs OCR:

  1. Upload scanned PDF to Google Drive
  2. Right-click → Open with → Google Docs
  3. Google extracts the text (may take a moment)
  4. Use Tools → Word Count (or Ctrl+Shift+C)

Important: Scanned PDFs require OCR first—no word counting method will work until the image-based text is converted to actual text characters.

How to Identify if Your PDF is Text or Image-Based

Not sure if your PDF contains actual text or scanned images?

Quick test:

  1. Open the PDF
  2. Try to select text with your cursor
  3. If you can highlight individual words, it’s text-based
  4. If clicking and dragging selects the whole page as an image, it’s scanned

Another indicator:

  • Text-based PDFs are usually smaller file sizes
  • Scanned PDFs are often larger (image data)
  • Searchable PDFs (Ctrl+F works) contain text

Accuracy Considerations

Different methods may give slightly different word counts due to:

How hyphenated words are counted:

  • Some counters: “self-esteem” = 1 word
  • Others: “self-esteem” = 2 words

Headers, footers, and page numbers:

  • May or may not be included depending on selection
  • Decide if these should count toward your total

Tables and charts:

  • Text in tables may be missed by some methods
  • Data labels might inflate counts artificially

Hidden text and layers:

  • Some PDFs contain hidden text layers
  • Proper tools handle these; copy-paste might miss them

For critical documents, use multiple methods and compare results.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I get an exact word count from a PDF without any tools?

No, PDFs don’t have a built-in word count feature. You’ll need to use one of the methods above to extract or analyze the text.

Why does my word count differ between methods?

Different tools have different rules for counting hyphenated words, numbers, and special characters. The differences are usually minor (within 1-2%).

Do page numbers count toward word count?

When you copy-paste, page numbers and headers usually come along. Select just the body text if you need to exclude them.

How do I count words in a password-protected PDF?

You’ll need the password to access the content for any word counting method. Protected PDFs restrict text selection and copying.

Is there a way to count words in multiple PDFs at once?

Professional tools like Adobe Acrobat Pro can batch process multiple files. For free options, you’ll need to process each PDF individually.

How accurate is OCR for word counting?

Modern OCR is quite accurate for clearly printed text (95%+), but accuracy drops significantly with poor scan quality, unusual fonts, or handwriting.

Key Takeaways

  • Google Docs (free) is the easiest method—upload to Drive and open with Docs, then Ctrl+Shift+C
  • Microsoft Word can open PDFs directly via File → Open
  • Adobe Acrobat Pro ($22.99/month) offers built-in word count for complex documents
  • Online tools like PDFWordCount.com work well for quick counts
  • Copy-paste to any word counter works for simple text-based PDFs
  • Scanned PDFs require OCR first—Google Docs does this automatically when you open the PDF

Conclusion

While PDFs don’t offer one-click word counting like Word or Google Docs, several reliable methods exist for every situation. For most users, copying text to an online word counter or word processor provides quick, accurate results. For scanned documents, Google Docs’ free OCR capability makes text extraction easy. Choose the method that best fits your workflow and the type of PDFs you work with most often. Try our free letter counter → to quickly count words from any text you can copy from a PDF.