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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Paul Edstein 82,871 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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Answer accepted by question author
Jay Freedman 208.3K 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 82,871 Reputation points Volunteer Moderator
    2012-12-15T01:56:45+00:00

    which showed characters used as I typed

      which show the character position on the current line

    Which is what I said

    Ok it's only for the current line but it's counting the characters which it doesn't do in word 2010

    Maybe it's that I haven't figured out how to set it up but in trying to find out how to do it I came across this site

    If you could enlighten me it would be appreciated

    That might be what you meant, but it's not what you said - you made no mention of the count being limited to the current line. Anyone reading 'office 2003 which showed characters used as I typed' is entitled to believe you were referring to a document total, especially as you claimed Word 2010 lacks the functionality.

    To activate/deactivate it in Word 2010, right-click on the Status bar and check/uncheck the column option.

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  2. Anonymous
    2012-12-14T23:45:59+00:00

    which showed characters used as I typed

      which show the character position on the current line

    Which is what I said

    Ok it's only for the current line but it's counting the characters which it doesn't do in word 2010

    Maybe it's that I haven't figured out how to set it up but in trying to find out how to do it I came across this site

    If you could enlighten me it would be appreciated

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  3. Paul Edstein 82,871 Reputation points Volunteer Moderator
    2012-12-14T22:59:58+00:00

    On my old computer I used office 2003 which showed characters used as I typed which I think is what Papasik is looking for so it looks as though office 2010 is a step backwards

    Office 2003 has no such facility. The nearest it has are a 'column count', line count and page which show the character position on the current line, the current line on the page and the current page#, respectively. Word 2010 has the same features.

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