Microsoft KB Archive/212705

= WD2000: Word Count Appears Inaccurate Using VBA Words Property =

Article ID: 212705

Article Last Modified on 6/17/2005

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APPLIES TO


 * Microsoft Word 2000 Standard Edition

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This article was previously published under Q212705



For a Microsoft Word 2002 version of this article, see 291447.



SYMPTOMS
When you use the Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications Words property to return a word count, the number of words returned appears to be inaccurate.



CAUSE
Microsoft provides programming examples for illustration only, without warranty either expressed or implied. This includes, but is not limited to, the implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. This article assumes that you are familiar with the programming language that is being demonstrated and with the tools that are used to create and to debug procedures. Microsoft support engineers can help explain the functionality of a particular procedure, but they will not modify these examples to provide added functionality or construct procedures to meet your specific requirements.

The Words property returns a collection that represents all the words in a range, selection, or document. The collection includes all punctuation and paragraph marks in the selection or the document.

For example, if you attempt to determine the word count of the following three lines of text using the Words property, the result is 24 words:

Sub GetWords MsgBox ActiveDocument.Words.Count End Sub

This is x number of words.

This is x number of words.

This is x number of words.



WORKAROUND
To return only the number of words in a document or a range, excluding paragraph marks and punctuation, use the ComputeStatistics method instead of the Words property.

The ComputeStatistics method returns a word count that does not include paragraph marks or punctuation. Using the sample text from the "Cause" section, the following code using the ComputeStatistics method returns a count of 18 words.

Sub GetWords MsgBox ActiveDocument.Range.ComputeStatistics(wdStatisticWords) End Sub

For more information about ComputeStatistics, in the Visual Basic Editor, click Microsoft Visual Basic Help on the Help menu, type statistics in the Office Assistant or the Answer Wizard, and then click Search to view the topic.



MORE INFORMATION
For additional information, click the article number below to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

241333 WD2000: Word Count Macro Available to Count Words in a Selection

For more information about how to use the sample code in this article, click the article number below to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

212536 OFF2000: How to Run Sample Code from Knowledge Base Articles

