If you work in litigation support, eDiscovery, or records management, you have probably spent more time than you should counting pages. Maybe you are quoting a production. Maybe a vendor needs a page count before they will price a scanning job. Maybe opposing counsel is asking how many pages are in the document set you produced.
There are several ways to get that number. Some are narrow PDF tools. Some live inside enterprise review platforms. Some require scripting. We built FileTally, so we are not neutral observers, but we tried to keep this comparison practical. If another option fits the job better, we say so. When the immediate question is pricing, our guide to estimating eDiscovery processing costs accurately shows why exact page totals matter more than file-size guesses.
What legal teams actually need from a page counter
Before comparing tools, it is worth listing what matters in this space. Not all page counters are created for the same user.
- Batch processing — Count every file in a folder at once, not one at a time.
- Mixed file types — Real document sets are not all PDFs. You need Word, Excel, TIFF, images, and other common document types.
- Spreadsheet export — Your client or vendor wants a spreadsheet, not a number on a screen.
- Local processing — If you are handling confidential client documents, uploading them to a website is rarely the preferred option.
- Error flagging — Corrupted files and password-protected documents need to surface, not silently fail.
- Simple deployment — Litigation support staff should not need IT to install a server.
- Pricing that matches the task — Page counting should be easy to justify, not buried inside a much larger platform decision.
The comparison table
Here is how the major options stack up across the features that matter for legal document work.
| Feature | FileTally | Adobe Acrobat Pro | Relativity / Nuix | PowerShell / Python | Online page counters |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Batch folder scanning | Yes | Partial — Actions feature, PDF only | Yes | Yes — if you write it | Partial — usually one file at a time |
| PDF page counting | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Word / Excel / PowerPoint | Yes — Office automation plus fallback handling | No | Yes | Partial — requires libraries per format | No — PDF only |
| Images (TIFF, JPEG, HEIC) | Yes — configurable image handling | No | Yes | Partial — TIFF frames need custom code | No |
| CSV / XLSX export | Yes — one click | No — no spreadsheet export | Yes — inside the platform | Partial — you build your own export | No |
| Error & exception flagging | Yes — review issues in app | No — limited workflow visibility | Yes | No — unless you code it | No |
| 100% local / offline | Yes — no internet needed | Yes | No — platform or hosted workflow | Yes | No — uploads files |
| No IT / server setup | Yes — single installer | Yes | No — infrastructure required | Partial — needs technical ownership | Yes |
| Compressed file detection | Yes — flags archives and can extract when needed | No | Yes | No — unless you build it | No |
| Extension-level rules | Yes — per-extension rules | No | Partial — via processing profiles | Partial — you write the logic | No |
| Pricing profile | Solo license | Subscription | Enterprise platform pricing | Free — your time is the cost | Free or low-cost |
Tool-by-tool breakdown
Adobe Acrobat Pro
Adobe Acrobat is the tool most people think of first. And it does count PDF pages. The problem is it only counts PDF pages. If your document set includes Word files, Excel files, scanned TIFFs, or images, Acrobat cannot help.
You can use the Actions feature in Acrobat Pro to batch-process a folder of PDFs, but there is no built-in way to export the results to a spreadsheet. You end up manually extracting page counts from the Acrobat interface. For a folder of 50 files this is manageable but inefficient. For a folder of 5,000 files it is not realistic.
Best for: People who already have Acrobat and need to count a small number of PDFs occasionally.
Relativity, Nuix, LAW, and other eDiscovery platforms
The enterprise eDiscovery platforms absolutely can count pages. They are also designed for much broader processing and review work, with the cost and administration that comes with it.
If your firm already runs Relativity or Nuix, you probably do not need a separate page counter. But if the requirement is simply “scan this folder and give me a spreadsheet,” they are usually more platform than you need.
Best for: Large firms and service providers who already run an eDiscovery platform and need page counts inside a broader processing workflow.
PowerShell or Python scripts
You can write a script to count PDF pages. We know, because FileTally started as one. The open-source libraries exist: iTextSharp, PyPDF2, PdfSharpCore. You can get a basic PDF counter working in an afternoon.
The trouble starts when you need to handle Word documents, Excel files with print areas, multi-page TIFFs, and corrupted files that crash your script. Then you need error handling, fallback strategies, and an export layer. Then someone asks for a GUI because they are not comfortable running scripts. Then you are maintaining a full application.
If you enjoy writing code and only need PDF counts, a script is a perfectly good option. If you need production-grade results across mixed file types, you will spend time building the rest of the workflow yourself.
Best for: Technical users who only work with PDFs and do not mind maintaining scripts.
Online page counters (PDFPageCount.com, SmallPDF, ILovePDF, etc.)
These tools are fast to reach for. They work in a browser. They require you to upload your documents to someone else’s server.
For personal files, that may be fine. For confidential client documents in litigation, it raises confidentiality, vendor review, and data-handling questions many teams would rather avoid. Our guide to cloud tools for legal document counting goes deeper on those review concerns.
Beyond the security issue, most online counters only handle one file at a time. They do not handle folders. They do not export to spreadsheets. They do not handle non-PDF formats.
Best for: Non-sensitive personal documents where you need a quick count of a single PDF.
FileTally
We built FileTally specifically for litigation support teams, records managers, and anyone who needs to count pages across a folder of mixed documents and hand the result to someone as a spreadsheet.
It runs on your Windows machine. It handles PDFs, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, TIFF, JPEG, HEIC, text files, and more. It detects compressed files before scanning, offers extraction when needed, flags errors and corrupted files, and exports to CSV or XLSX.
It is a single installer with a straightforward local workflow. No servers. No browser upload step. No IT ticket required for a typical workstation install.
Best for: Litigation support staff, eDiscovery teams, records management, and backfile scanning vendors who need fast, local, accurate page counts with spreadsheet export.
The verdict
If you already run Relativity, you do not need another tool. If you only count PDFs occasionally, Acrobat works. If you enjoy writing code, scripts are viable.
But if you need to count pages across mixed file types, keep everything local, flag exceptions, and export a spreadsheet without building the workflow yourself, FileTally is one of the few tools built specifically for that job.
If you already know the job is a local folder count, start with our tutorial on counting pages across a folder of PDFs on Windows.
Try it on a real matter
FileTally includes a 3-day trial that starts on the first successful scan. If you want to test it on a real folder, download the Windows installer and export a sample spreadsheet.