Why zero words on my scanned PDF?

Scans are images, not text. The text layer is empty by design — OCR the file first, then count.

Are headers and footers counted?

Yes, everything in the text layer counts. For body-only figures, subtract a per-page constant.

Within a percent for born-digital PDFs. Ligatures and hyphenation edge cases explain the residual.

PDF Word Count

Count every word in a PDF with a per-page breakdown and grand total.

Count words in PDF files instantly in your browser. Free PDF word counter with per-page breakdown and totals.

About PDF Words

Count every word in a PDF with a per-page breakdown and grand total.

Upload a PDF to extract each page’s text layer and count whitespace-separated words, reported per page with a total. Scanned-image PDFs have no text layer and correctly report near-zero — run OCR first for those.

Files stay in your browser; only the small reader library loads from CDN. Hyphenated line-breaks count as separate tokens, a known approximation.

Where it is used

Pricing translation and editing work, checking manuscript length requirements, and auditing document scope.

How to use the PDF Words

Select PDF — select a file (application/pdf,.pdf) — Text-based PDFs up to 50 MB. Scanned images need OCR first..
Calculate — press the Calculate button to see the result instantly above.

Formula

pdf.js text extraction per page → whitespace-split word counts + totals.

Examples

Example

Result: Select a PDF → e.g. 4,120 words across 12 pages

Frequently Asked Questions

Why zero words on my scanned PDF?: Scans are images, not text. The text layer is empty by design — OCR the file first, then count.
Are headers and footers counted?: Yes, everything in the text layer counts. For body-only figures, subtract a per-page constant.
How accurate is it?: Within a percent for born-digital PDFs. Ligatures and hyphenation edge cases explain the residual.

Calculator Inputs