Word count on selection

Feature requests
1

Use case or problem

I need to know how many words I have written in a particular paragraph. Obsidian only gives word count for the entire text in the editor. Right now, I copy paste the paragraph into https://wordcounter.net/ and get the count that way.

Proposed solution

When I highlight a segment of text in the editor, the word count only for the highlighted segment is shown.

Related feature requests (optional)

There is a plugin for this, but I believe this should be a core part of the product.

16 Likes
2

I second this!

3

+1. This should be a core plugin rather than a third party, especially that now the Better Word Count Plugin is no longer working in the latest live preview version.

1 Like
4

I strongly agree the core plugin should do this. It’s a common feature in text editors and I use it often.

The Better Word Count plugin has never worked on mobile. When it stopped working on desktop I worked around it by copying text to a “word count” note. Then I learned that both plugins count incorrectly, so I started writing in a separate app. I’ve also set up a workaround with Apple Shortcuts.

5

Also, this request is tagged “editor-legacy” but still applies to the new editor.

6

This is now in the Community Plugin store:

Works on Live Preview. I’ve not tested mobile (but LP uses the same editor as mobile) though there may not be enough screen space for it to work well on a phone.

2 Likes
7

This request is for word count of the current selection, not of the whole file. I see it includes the count of the current selection!

1 Like
8

Alas, it counts text in comments (and presumably in other invisible Markdown text, as the core word count plugin does). Looks quite useful for other people, tho!

1 Like
9

Use case or problem

It would be great to see the word count of the selection. If nothing is selected the word count would be as usual. It is very useful when writing a piece that is supposed to have a fixed word count and having several versions in one note to check the amount of words.

Current workaround

Just copy and paste the text into an online word count tool

1 Like
10

This can be accomplished with the Better Word Count plugin: https://github.com/lukeleppan/better-word-count

1 Like
11

This is a duplicate of https://forum.obsidian.md/t/word-count-on-highlight/10432.

1 Like
12

Include me in the list of people that is surprised this functionality isn’t baked in – I just found myself copying a note into Google Docs in order to count how many characters are in each paragraph :sweat_smile: Is there any kind of voting mechanism for feature requests?

I’m a relatively new Obsidian user and still building trust using third party / community plugins and @CawlinTeffid’s point about plugins not working on mobile is incredibly valid.

Hopefully this does make it into core at some point. Following this topic :popcorn:

1 Like
13

Upvote by pressing the heart button.

2 Likes
14

EDIT:

extracted the other feature request to it’s own issue.

15

That deserves its own feature request.

1 Like