CAUSE
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 21 words:
This is x number of words<return>
This is x number of words<return>
This is x number of words<return>
WORKAROUND
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To return only the number of words in a document or a selection, exclusive
of paragraph marks and punctuation, use the Dialogs object instead of the
Words property.
The Dialogs object returns a word count that does not include paragraph
marks or punctuation. Using the example from the "Cause" section, the
Dialogs object returns a count of 18 words.
The following Visual Basic for Applications code shows the difference
between using the Words property and the Dialogs object method to return a
word count for a document.
Sub CountWords()
' Retrieve the number of words including paragraph marks and
' punctuation using the Dialogs collection. This returns the
' same result as if you used the Word Count command (Tools menu).
Set wdDTWC = Dialogs(wdDialogToolsWordCount)
wdDTWC.Execute
dlgwordcount$ = wdDTWC.Words
MsgBox "Word Count from Tools Word Count: " & dlgwordcount$
' Retrieve the number of words from the Words collection.
selwordcount$ = ActiveDocument.Words.Count
MsgBox "Word Count from Words Collection: " & selwordcount$
End Sub
For more information about the Dialogs Object, from the Visual Basic
Editor, click the Office Assistant, type
Dialogs, click Search, and then
click to view "Dialogs Object."
NOTE: If the Assistant is hidden, click the Office Assistant button on the
Standard toolbar. If the Assistant is not able to answer your query, please
see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
176476 OFF: Office Assistant Not Answering Visual Basic Questions