In a world where attention spans are shorter than ever, conveying more with fewer words is essential. That’s why, whether you're a student crafting an essay or a freelancer optimizing your portfolio, it's crucial to keep your content concise yet comprehensive.
While flexibility with word count is common, there are times when you face strict limits. For instance, the SEO metadata of your webpage may have a character restriction. This constraint is even more pronounced on social media platforms, where you can’t publish posts exceeding a set limit.
In all these scenarios, having a handy tool to easily track word count is indispensable. If you're using Notion for your blog, checking the word count is just a click away. In this article, we'll guide you through the three simple steps of checking word count in Notion.
1. Create a new page and write your content
For reference, we created a new Notion page featuring a sample blog post, as shown in the image below.
We'll determine the word count for this page in the following steps.
2. Click on the “...” icon at the top-right corner of your screen
This action opens a menu with various options related to the page, including checking the page history, publishing, and more. Notably, it also reveals the word count.
3. Scroll down to view the word count.
To see the word count, scroll down the options, all the way to the bottom.
How to create a Notion word count tracker?
While checking the word count of a page is simple, you need to set up a database to create a Notion word count tracker. You would need to use a Notion formula that records the word count of content within the cells of the database. Let’s create a Notion word counter tracker template to show you how it works.
There are four steps to that:
1. Create a Notion Database
The first step involves organizing content in a tabular format. By creating a table view in the Notion database, you can input content into one column and calculate the word count in another.
We will reference the database below in the subsequent steps.
The first column includes the SEO meta description for three pages. We will use the second column to track the word count.
2. Rename and change the property of the second column
Next, we will rename the second column and set its property to "Formula."
3. Use the Notion word count formula
The cells under the column with the property set as "Formula" need the input of a formula. You can use the formula below to track the word count of the content under the "Meta Description Text" column.
if(length(Meta Description Text) > 0, length(replaceAll(Meta Description Text, "[^ ]", "")) + 1, 0)
Let's break down the components of the formula:
- length(Meta Description Text) > 0: This part checks if there is any text in the "Meta Description Text" column. If the length of the text is greater than 0 (i.e., there is some text), then the formula proceeds to the next part.
- length(replaceAll(Meta Description Text, "[^ ]", "")) + 1: If there is text, this part of the formula calculates the word count. It uses the replaceAll() function to remove all characters that are not spaces (using the regular expression [^ ]). Then, it calculates the length of the remaining text (which essentially counts the spaces). Finally, it adds 1 to the result to get the total word count.
- , 0: If there is no text in the "Meta Description Text" column (as checked in the first part), the formula returns 0.
You can substitute the name of your column for the "Meta Description Text" in the formula.
4. Click outside the formula view
Once you click outside the formula box, you will notice Notion displaying the word count for each meta description right next to it in the “Word Count” column of the database.
FAQs
How to check the word count of highlighted text in Notion?
Notion, while offering numerous features compared to Google Docs, does not reveal the word count of highlighted text. You can only view the total number of words on the page.
Does Notion have a word count feature?
Yes, you can determine the number of words in your Notion page by clicking on the “...” icon at the top-right corner of the screen and scrolling to the bottom of the view.
How to count characters in Notion text?
To count characters, begin by creating a database with at least two columns. The first column should contain the text for which you want to track the word count, and the second column should have the following Notion character count formula to calculate the number of characters:
length(Column 1 name)Sticking with the example of meta descriptions, the formula “length(Meta Description Text)”, returns the character count in column 3, as displayed in the below image.
How to turn on word count in Notion?
The word count feature in Notion can’t be toggled on or off.
You can check the word count by clicking on the “...” icon at the top-right corner of the screen.
