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Google Docs will soon show you word counts while you type

Google Docs will soon show you word counts while you type

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Update: It’s coming to “all users” not just G Suite

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If you want to see how many words you’ve typed in a Google Docs document right now, you currently gotta select that from a drop-down menu first: Tools > Word Count. (There’s a keyboard shortcut, sure.)

But starting this week, G Suite (read: Google Docs for business) customers can activate a live word counter that shows you word counts while you type, and Google tells us it’s coming to all users “in the coming weeks.”

“We’ve heard that displaying this information is helpful to users working on docs that require minimum or maximum word count,” writes Google.

No kidding, Google.

It should be rolled out to all G Suite users by early October.

Word count: 116.

Update, 12:45 PM ET: Added Google confirmation that this isn’t just for G Suite customers, but will come to other Google Docs users too. Also updated word count — minus this paragraph, of course.