Document Properties "Word Count" differs from the word count in MS Word

The status bar indicator does not include the word count from textboxes, endnotes and/or footnotes unless that option is checked in the Word Count dialog.

So the discrepancy between the two counts would seem to be coming from textboxes, endnotes and footnotes. Use Ctrl+Shift+G for the Word Count dialog for the most accurate count. If you rely upon the status bar indicator, you may or may not be aware of the current setting for Include textboxes, footnotes and endnotes option.

Word counts in general are notoriously unreliable. For example, see http://blog.garycorby.com/2009/05/word-count-in-openoffice-writer-and.html. It seems that Word's counting algorithm is not documented anywhere, but clearly it differs from that used by Windows. I believe that Word counts an empty paragraph as a word, and probably also section breaks, hard page breaks, and the like.

It may also be that Windows is counting anything between two spaces as a word; for an example of this, see https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=38983, which describes this behavior in LibreOffice Writer.

Here are some word count macros you may want to consider using:

A Quick-and-Dirty Word Count

http://wordribbon.tips.net/T009773_Viewing_Document_Statistics.html

Summary:** Got an editor or teacher who wants you to calculate the number of words in a document the “old fashioned way?” You can do it by using a compound field, discussed in this tip.

Counting Words the Old Fashioned Way

http://wordribbon.tips.net/T012345\_Counting\_Words\_the\_Old\_Fashioned\_Way.html

Summary: One way to specify word count is to count characters and divide by five. If you still need this old-fashioned way of counting, here's how you can let Word do the heavy calculating for you.

Running Word Counts

http://word.tips.net/T001745_Running_Word_Counts.html

Summary: Do you need to keep track of how many words are in your document? Word provides a tool to display a word count on demand, but you may want something more automatic, like a running word count. The macro in this tip can be used to display a handy word count that refreshes on a regular interval.

Counting Characters in Text Boxes

http://word.tips.net/T001839_Counting_Characters_in_Text_Boxes.html

Summary: When you do a word count, the value that is returned does not include any text contained in text boxes. This may not be a significant problem, unless you have a large amount of text in those boxes. This tip discusses ways you can deal with this issue.

Inserting a Dynamic Word Count in Your Document

http://wordribbon.tips.net/T007353\_Inserting\_a\_Dynamic\_Word\_Count\_in\_Your\_Document.html

Ignoring Hyphens in Word Counts

http://word.tips.net/T001706_Ignoring_Hyphens_in_Word_Counts.html

Summary: When you do a word count, Word treats hyphenated phrases as a single word. If you prefer a word count that treats hyphenated phrases as multiple words, then you need to perform a few steps to get the desired result. This tip explains why it makes sense to treat hyphenated phrases as single words, and then shows how you can bypass this common-sense approach. (This tip works with Word 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003.)

http://wordribbon.tips.net/T007353_Inserting_a_Dynamic_Word_Count_in_Your_Document.html

What about counting Asian characters (e.g Japanese)?

Interestingly enough though, the word count from within the folder was lower than that inside the document itself. But after doing a little editing it seems to have sorted itself out! All good now :-)