I recently needed to know the word count in a PowerPoint presentation. In my case, this was because I charge my clients by the word, in the main, and needed to know how much to charge someone for editing her PowerPoint text. But I’m sure it will be useful in other cases, too, for example if you’re a student with a word count target.
And it’s NOT obvious. Plus it’s different in Word 2007 and Word 2010, of course.
So, this is what you do …
How do I count the words in a PowerPoint 2007 presentation?
Open your document and click on the big Office button in the top left (1)
Click on Prepare (2) (like that’s obvious!) then Properties (3). This will give you some of the document properties in a bar along the top (these vary according to how you set up your document in the first place):
And because nothing ever shows you what you want immediately, you then need to click on Document Properties then choose Advanced Properties from the drop down. Then, finally, you get …
A lovely dialogue box with all the properties you could ever want, including the word count.
Please note, these hints work with versions of Microsoft Powerpoint 2007, for PC. Mac compatible versions should have similar options. Always save a copy of your document before manipulating it. I bear no responsibility for any pickles you might get yourself into!
Related posts:
How do I count the number of words in a PowerPoint 2010 presentation?
How do I count the number of words in a PowerPoint 2013 presentation?
Find all the short cuts here …
LibroEditing proofreading, editing, transcription, localisation 
Cocoonfxmedia
April 25, 2012 at 10:13 am
Having done some pretty big presentations to some of the top retailers in the world, words should be kept to bullet points and a max 5 bullet points per slide. Presentations should be a graphical support to a pitch or presentation. Nice post thou
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Liz at Libro
April 25, 2012 at 10:24 am
Yes, indeed, in fact I will probably do a post on PowerPoints themselves somewhere along the line. Some of these posts (c.f. “Why have my comments boxes gone tiny in Word”) are more written as aides memoire for myself as a reference tool, although that one actually gets at least a hit a day from the search engines!
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Clement Sitali
January 2, 2013 at 6:03 pm
This has been very useful and to the point. Keep up the good job.
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Liz at Libro
January 2, 2013 at 6:10 pm
Thank you for taking the time to let me know that it’s been useful – much appreciated!
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diana
December 2, 2013 at 3:46 pm
This has been really very helpful, thank you so much! Everyone else was talking about a “File” tab, but there’s no File tab in my PowerPoint version.. 😦
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Liz at Libro
December 2, 2013 at 3:53 pm
You’re welcome – and yes, there is no File tab in PowerPoint 2007. Funnily enough, I’ll be publishing a post on how to count the words in PowerPoint 2010 and 2013 later on this week – where there is one!
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Rahul Kulkarni
March 3, 2014 at 4:52 am
Hello, i just discovered that, the above mentioned function does count not only the words but also the punctuation marks like ” .” (dot) as a word. So this function dose not really help. Can you please find another method ? I am also searching for it, if i get first , i will post. Thanks anyway for efforts. Have a good day.
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Liz at Libro
March 3, 2014 at 9:58 am
Thanks for your comment. I’ve just checked this in 2007, 2010 and 2013 and you’re right – also I did a search and this seems to be a known problem. I have found some counting sofware on http://ginstrom.com/CountAnything/ however I HAVE NOT CHECKED THIS so it might not be legitimate. If you want to check it and report back, that would be great, I don’t have time today to do that.
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Liz Pitt de Morales
June 3, 2014 at 5:22 pm
Hi Liz,
THANK YOU for this information. You made it so simple that even I was able to find the word count with my first attempt!
Best,
Liz
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lester88
July 26, 2014 at 3:45 am
I had a number of PPT slides grouped in a file. When I open the file, the top of the page shows boxes including File, Edit, View, Insert, Format, Tools, Slide Show, Window, Help, Adobe PDF. I simply click File, then Properties, then Statistics to get the total word count. I have Microsoft Office 2007. Since I have Adobe Pro, that might explain why I see a File box to be clicked that you don’t see.
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Liz at Libro
July 26, 2014 at 6:41 am
Thanks for your comment. When you describe the boxes, do you mean the standard tabs that appear at the top of the page, as with my second image in this post showing the tabs Home – Insert – Design – Animations etc.? Are you using Office on a PC or a Mac? I’m just curious why having Adobe installed would give you a File tab, I can understand it giving you an Adobe tab, but not that …
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lester88
July 26, 2014 at 2:52 pm
Yes, I mean the tabs. I am in fact using Microsoft Office 2003, not 2007 as I mistakenly said. Does that explain why I get a File tab? I’m using Office on a PC. You’re right, I don’t think Adobe is what gives the File tab.
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Path of Beauty
February 20, 2015 at 10:28 pm
Is a character count possible in PowerPoint 2007?
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Liz Dexter
February 21, 2015 at 12:06 pm
Thanks for your question. Only the counts listed on the screen shot are available, so not character count. To do that, you will need to copy the text into a Word document – that’s the quickest way to do it.
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Madhavi
June 27, 2021 at 3:20 pm
Thank you so much
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Liz Dexter
June 27, 2021 at 4:15 pm
You’re welcome!
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