WD2000: Word Count Appears Inaccurate Using VBA Words Property (212705)

CAUSE

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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

REFERENCES

For additional information about getting help with Visual Basic for Applications, click the article number below to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

226118 OFF2000: Programming Resources for Visual Basic for Applications