Word 365 - A grand total count of all words ever typed? (Not the current count, all words ever, including deleted)

Question

Here's an unusual question, as it pertains to how an author may want to count how many total words they typed into a document, even if those words got deleted/removed later during editing.

In other words, the question is NOT how many words currently exist in the document. The question is, "how may words in total were typed". (I suspect the answer is "no", but I'm curious.)

So for example, I type in the equivalent of "War and Peace", supposedly 587,287 according to the random first hit I got doing a search. Then I delete it all, and write "It was a dark and stormy night." I would be looking for an answer of (587,287 + 7), which would be 587,294.

Does such a thing exist?

Answer 1

You could start your document with Track Changes turned on and never accept deletions. That may give you a count.

If not, you would need to, in a copy, reject all deletions.

Answer 2

Word does not provide any feature or field that tracks or reports the cumulative number of words ever typed in a document, including text that was later deleted.

Word’s built‑in word count features only report:

• The number of words currently in the document or in a selection (via the status bar or Review > Word Count).
• A word-count field that reflects the current document content when inserted with Insert > Quick Parts > Field > NumWords and updated.

Deleted text is not included in any of these counts, and there is no historical “all words ever typed” metric available.

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References:

• Show word count
• Use fields to insert word count in your document