How To Check Word Count in Notion

Do you need to know the word count for your text in Notion? You might be creating a blog post, finishing a school assignment, or building a project proposal, and knowing your word count is often essential.

Notion doesn’t display the word count directly on the page as you type. However, it offers a simple way to check the total count for any page. You can also use formulas for more specific tracking within databases.

This guide shows you how to find the word count in Notion quickly and effectively.

How to Find the Total Word Count on a Notion Page

Notion provides a straightforward way to see the total word count for any page. This is great for a quick overview of your content’s length.

Here’s how to do it:

1. Navigate to the specific Notion page for which you want to check the word count.
2. Find this icon (•••) in the top-right corner of your page and click it. This opens the page options menu.
3. Scroll down the menu that appears.
4. You’ll see the total word count displayed in light gray text at the very bottom. It’s usually located just above the “Last edited” information.

This straightforward method allows you to quickly view the total number of words on your Notion page.

Tracking Word Counts in a Notion Database

Sometimes, you need to track word counts for specific entries within a Notion database. For example, you might want to monitor the length of individual blog post drafts or task descriptions. While there isn’t a direct way to achieve this at the moment, you can use a Notion formula.

Follow these steps:

1. Go to the database where you want to track word counts. Make sure you have a text property for the content you’ll be counting.
2. Click the “+” icon to add a new column (property) to your database. Choose “Formula” as the property type.
3. Give your new property a clear name, like “Word Count“.

4. Click inside the formula field for your new property. Copy and paste the following formula. Important: Replace "Your Text Property" with the actual name of the text property you want to count words from.

if(
  length(prop("Your Text Property")) > 0,
  length(
    replaceAll(
      replaceAll(prop("Your Text Property"), " +", " "), /* Replace multiple spaces with one */
      "[^ ]", /* Now count the single spaces */
      ""
    )
  ) + 1,
  0
)

5. Click outside the formula box. Notion will automatically calculate and show the word count for each entry based on the text in your specified property.

Tracking Character Counts in a Notion Database

Need to track characters instead of words? This is useful for content with character limits, like social media posts or meta descriptions. You can use a similar formula method.

Here’s how:

1. In your Notion database, add another new property and select “Formula” as the type.
2. Call it something descriptive, such as “Character Count“
3. Click into the formula field and enter this formula. Again, replace "Your Text Property" with the correct name of your text property.

    length(prop("Your Text Property"))

4. Click outside the formula box. You’ll now see the character count for each database entry.

This method allows you to track the number of characters for each entry in your database.

Limitations of Word Count in Notion

While Notion provides useful features for tracking word counts, there are some limitations to be aware of:

• Notion doesn’t currently let you check the word count for only a highlighted section of text. The count is always for the entire page or database property.
• The overall page word count isn’t displayed directly on the page itself. You need to open the options menu (•••) to see it.
• Tracking counts within databases relies on setting up formulas, which might take a moment to configure correctly.

Conclusion: Tracking Word Count in Notion

Notion gives you practical ways to monitor your content length. You can quickly check the total word count for any page through the options menu. For more detailed tracking, you can use formulas to count words or characters within your databases.