Paper Count

Your document stays on your device

A smarter word count for complex PDFs.

Get a clearer count from dissertations, journal articles, and reports—even when they contain equations, tables, headers, and dense academic formatting.

No upload No sign-up Free to use
Choose your PDF
PDF word counter

Choose a document

Local
How should we count?
Page range & options
Private by design. Your PDF is processed only in this browser.

Completely privateNo file ever reaches a server

Academic-awareDesigned for formulas and tables

Easy to verifyPreview what was actually counted

Made for real-world documents

PDFs are messy.
Your word count shouldn’t be.

Paper Count looks beyond a simple copy-and-paste, so complex layouts produce a more useful result.

01

Less noise from equations

Academic mode recognises standalone formula rows and avoids treating one-letter variables as prose.

02

Cleaner page structure

Repeated headers and footers are detected across the document, while line-break hyphenation is repaired.

03

A result you can inspect

Review the extracted text, see page-level totals, and download a copy whenever you need to double-check.

Your work stays yours

Private because there is nowhere to upload it.

Paper Count has no document server, cloud history, or account system. Your browser opens the file, calculates the result, and forgets everything when you close the page.

Count your PDF privately
  1. 1
    Choose your PDF

    You grant temporary access to one local file.

  2. 2
    Count in your browser

    Your device reads the text and layout.

  3. 3
    Close when finished

    No document or result is saved online.

Good to know

Questions, answered.

Word-count rules vary. Paper Count gives you a transparent result you can adapt to your institution or publisher.

What does Academic mode count?

It counts natural-language words while ignoring standalone equation-like rows and most one-letter variables. Repeated headers and footers can also be removed.

Does my PDF leave my computer?

No. The file is read in your browser’s memory and is never sent to Paper Count or stored in an online account.

Can it count a scanned PDF?

A scan may not contain selectable text. Paper Count flags pages where no text can be extracted so you know when OCR is needed.

Will it match my university’s official count?

Universities differ on references, tables, captions, and appendices. Use the page range and extracted-text preview to align the result with your specific rules.

Support Paper Count

Keep a useful little tool free.

There is no paywall and no pressure. If Paper Count helped, a small tip supports hosting, improvements, and a privacy-first alternative to upload-based tools.

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