Often, you need to count the words, characters, lines, paragraphs, or pages in your document. For example, in creating your document, you might have been given a word limit you aren't permitted to exceed. To get an accurate estimate of your document's current size, choose Tools, Word Count. Word reads your document and displays the Word Count dialog box (see Figure 8.24).
By default, Word does not include footnotes and endnotes in its count. If you want them included, check the Include Footnotes and Endnotes check box; Word recounts immediately.
If you frequently need word counts, you can use the Word Count toolbar to recount the words in a document in a single click. To display the word count toolbar, choose Tools, Word Count, and click the Show Toolbar button. The Word Count toolbar appears, displaying the word count (see Figure 8.25).
When you add or delete words from your document, the word count disappears; to display a new word count, click Recount.
Counts of pages, paragraphs, lines, words, and characters are also available. Click File, Properties to display the Properties dialog box for your active document; then select the Statistics tab. Word automatically updates all of your document's statistics when you select this tab.
TIP
You can't print the results from the Word Count dialog box, but you can use the NumChars, NumPages, and NumWords fields to insert that information in your document.