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Display Character Count in Status Bar (Word 2010)

Anonymous
2010-12-25T18:30:36+00:00

I can right-click on the status bar and display the Word Count, but I need to see the Character Count as I type.

How can I display the Character Count in the status bar?

Microsoft 365 and Office | Word | For home | Windows

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  1. Paul Edstein 82,861 Reputation points Volunteer Moderator
    2010-12-28T03:08:51+00:00

    Without programming a new class event to intercept your typing, you can't get a dynamic character count to display on the status bar and, if you did, it would probably prevent anything else displaying there.

    You could, though, use a macro like the following and assign a keyboard shortcut to it:

    Sub CharCount()

    Application.StatusBar = "Character Count = " & ActiveDocument.Characters.Count

    End Sub

    The above macro temporarily takes over the status bar to display the character count. It gets hidden again as soon as you resume whatever you were doing.

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  1. Jay Freedman 207.5K Reputation points Volunteer Moderator
    2012-03-26T23:18:36+00:00

    Technically, something is always selected. If the selection is collapsed to just the insertion point, then the selection is the single character to its right (which may be a paragraph mark). Therefore, the modified macro will show 'Character Count = 1' .

    If that makes you unhappy, you can change the macro to this:

    Sub CharCount()

    If Selection.Type = wdSelectionIP Then

       Application.StatusBar = "Character Count = 0"

    Else

       Application.StatusBar = "Character Count = " & Selection.Characters.Count

    End If

    End Sub

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  1. Paul Edstein 82,861 Reputation points Volunteer Moderator
    2010-12-25T20:57:42+00:00

    If you configure Word to display the word count on the status bar, clicking on the 'Words' button will display a dialogue box with the character count. If you have a range selected, the count will be for that range only.

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  2. Anonymous
    2010-12-28T01:38:58+00:00

    Hi, thanks for taking the time to reply.

    Rather than click to access the character count, I need the character count to be displayed in the status bar so that I can watch the character count increase or decrease as I type.

    How do I avoid unnecessary clicks to open dialogue boxes to find that information and have it automatically appear in the status bar?

    Thanks

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  3. Anonymous
    2010-12-28T20:04:49+00:00

    Hi Paul.

    Okay, thank you.

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