Where is Word Count? (video)

A lot of you made the switch to Word 2007 or Word 2010 and lost track of your favorite feature, Word Count. It's still there, in two places:

1. The status bar in the lower-left corner of the screen. Word tracks the number of words in your document as you type. Select a block of text and Word will show you the number of words in that selection, also in the status bar. Handy.

2. On the Review tab, here:

Use the Word Count button on the Review tab when you want to check on things like the number of characters, paragraphs, or lines in your opus. To see it in action, check out this Word of the Week video:

Sometimes, you need to stick the word count right into your document (proving to your professor or editor that your paper or column is right on the money). There's another Word of the Week video that shows you how.

Want to count the number of words in the body of an email message, a PowerPoint presentation, a Publisher document, or a spreadsheet? There are a few ways. Sometimes copying and pasting into Word is the fastest way to get that number. Read the following articles for that and other methods:

Create a formula to count words in Excel

Count the number of words in an email message (Outlook 2010)

Count the words in your publication (Publisher 2010)

Count the number of words in a presentation (PowerPoint 2007 and 2010)

Count on!

--Jessica Reading