Determining the Number of Paragraphs in a Document

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated October 3, 2025)
This tip applies to Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and 2021

Macros are often used for processing an entire document. It is not unusual to have a macro step through all the paragraphs in a document and make changes based on the information in the paragraph. If you need to step through all the paragraphs in a document, it is helpful to find out how many paragraphs there are. The way you do that in a VBA macro is through the use of the Count property with the Paragraphs collection, as follows:

iParCount = ActiveDocument.Paragraphs.Count

The Paragraphs collection contains all of the paragraphs in the document, each in its own object. The Count property simply returns a value indicating how many objects (paragraphs) are in the collection. In the above example, this value is assigned to the iParCount variable. You can then use this count in doing any processing you need to.

Remember, as well, that paragraphs can be "empty" in Word. If someone types some information and then presses the Enter key twice, they have just created an empty paragraph with that second press of Enter. This increases the paragraph count, so it is a good idea to display non-printing characters in a document if you are trying to figure out how VBA derived the paragraph count that it did. The rule is that each press of Enter results in a new document paragraph.

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WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (5679) applies to Microsoft Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and 2021.

Author Bio

Allen Wyatt

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. Learn more about Allen...

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What is three more than 5?

2025-10-29 12:44:45

Barry

For a complex document I get significantly different results using the above macro, the Word statistics dialog and Find and replace dialog. (1285; 1060/1087*; 526 respectively)
The document has a Front page with a graphic and Title/Subtitle Fields; headers & footers; Tables and footnotes/endnotes. Oh! Ans a Table of Contents.
I'm having difficulty sorting out what parts of the document are included in each count, although I think I've established that the statistics dialog that displays with a click on 'words' in the status bar, just includes the main document (including figure captions etc and Table cells) with the option of *including text boxes, footnots and endnotes.
Has anyone any help/advice to clarify this please!

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