Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Word versions: 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and Word in Office 365. If you are using an earlier version (Word 2003 or earlier), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for earlier versions of Word, click here: Including Footnotes and Endnotes in Word Counts.

Including Footnotes and Endnotes in Word Counts

by Allen Wyatt
(last updated July 15, 2020)

Word includes a feature that allows you to quickly determine a number of statistics about your document. For instance, you can determine the number of words, sentences, and paragraphs in your document. By default, Word doesn't include anything in footnotes or endnotes in these statistics. But you can specify that text in those areas be included by following these steps:

Display the Review tab of the ribbon.
Click the Word Count tool (in the Proofing group). Word displays the Word Count dialog box. (See Figure 1.)

Figure 1. The Word Count dialog box.

Make sure the Include Textboxes, Footnotes and Endnotes check box is selected.
Review the document statistics, as desired.
Click on Close.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (8300) applies to Microsoft Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and Word in Office 365. You can find a version of this tip for the older menu interface of Word here: Including Footnotes and Endnotes in Word Counts.

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 four minus 4?

2015-03-16 10:15:32

dave britten

Hi Word 10

In my experience footnotes or endnotes are included by default in the word count. I have been caught out submitting essays with too few words, as the footnotes had been included.

If you save a blank page with footnotes un ticked it will remain like that for that document only.

A new document will have footnotes or endnotes enabled.

Hope this helps

Dave Britten

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