The Persistent Counter
Google Docs offers a word count feature accessible via Tools > Word count (or Ctrl + Shift + C). When you open this dialogue, you can check a box labelled “Display word count while typing,” which pins a small word count widget to the bottom-left corner of the document. While incredibly useful for writers working towards a specific word target, this persistent display becomes a distraction for users who no longer need it. The counter updates in real time with every keystroke, drawing the eye downward constantly. For users with performance concerns on older hardware, the real-time counting can also introduce micro-lag on very large documents with tens of thousands of words.
Hiding the Persistent Word Count Display
To stop Google Docs from automatically showing the live word count widget at the bottom of your document, you must toggle the display option off.
Open your document in Google Docs. Navigate to Tools in the top menu bar. Click on Word count (or press Ctrl + Shift + C on Windows, or Cmd + Shift + C on Mac). A dialogue box will appear showing the current word count, character count, and page count statistics. At the bottom of this dialogue, you will see a checkbox labelled Display word count while typing. Uncheck this box. Click OK. The persistent word count widget will immediately disappear from the bottom-left corner of the document. You can still access the word count at any time by returning to Tools > Word count — the information is always available on demand; you are simply removing the always-visible overlay. This setting is per-document, so you will need to repeat the process for each document where the counter was previously enabled.