Post Word Count

Do you want to show the total count of published words to the bottom of the “Right Now” widget in WordPress admin dashboard? While there’s probably a plugin for this, we have created a quick code snippet that you can use to display post word count in WordPress.

Instructions:

All you have to do is add this code to your theme’s functions.php file or in a site-specific plugin:

function post_word_count() {
    $count = 0;
    $posts = get_posts( array(
        'numberposts' => -1,
        'post_type' => array( 'post', 'page' )
    ));
    foreach( $posts as $post ) {
        $count += str_word_count( strip_tags( get_post_field( 'post_content', $post->ID )));
    }
    $num =  number_format_i18n( $count );
    // This block will add your word count to the stats portion of the Right Now box
    $text = _n( 'Word', 'Words', $num );
    echo "<tr><td class='first b'>{$num}</td><td class='t'>{$text}</td></tr>";
    // This line will add your word count to the bottom of the Right Now box.
    echo '<p>This blog contains a total of <strong>' . $num . '</strong> published words!</p>';
}

// add to Content Stats table
add_action( 'right_now_content_table_end', 'post_word_count');
// add to bottom of Activity Box
add_action('activity_box_end', 'post_word_count');

Note: If this is your first time adding code snippets in WordPress, then please refer to our guide on how to properly add code snippets in WordPress, so you don’t accidentally break your site.

If you liked this code snippet, please consider checking out our other articles on the site like: 7 best WordPress poll plugins to grow onsite engagement and 12 best WordPress podcast plugins.