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?

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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
    2016-06-14T22:31:47+00:00

    Surely in the age of Twitter and content creation, everyone can agree that character count is often more important than word count.        

    No publisher academic institution or professional organisation I know of requires content to be submitted on the basis of character counts. Except for a few specialised areas, every one of them that I am aware of works with word counts. Clearly none of them agrees with you that "character count is often more important than word count". Neither does MS, whom I expect keeps a watchful eye on how people use its products. Other word-processor manufacturers view the world similarly. Aside from trivialities such as SMS & twitter, the use of character counts is typically found in situations where the person submitting the content is charged on the basis of character counts (e.g. for classified advertising); again, hardly the thing you'd use Word to prepare on a regular basis.

    I fail to see how your reference to a suggestion re blogs is relevant. The suggestion makes a tendentious claim if ever there was one. Ask yourself: how many blogs are governed by character counts?

    As Doug says, though, you can always make your own suggestion at uservoice. Doubtless that would carry more weight if you gave credible evidence in support of your suggestion that "character count is often more important than word count".

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  2. Anonymous
    2016-11-12T11:05:52+00:00

    "Neither does MS, whom I expect keeps a watchful eye on how people use its products."

    Which would explain why the numeral half of the on screen keyboard of Win 10 is a phone pad, how? Or that there's no comma on that screen but there IS an emoji button?

    I'm sorry, I agreed with everything you said but I had to laugh at that one assertion.

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