Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Word versions: 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, 2021, 2024, and Word in Microsoft 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: Determining the Length of a String.

Determining the Length of a String

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated July 26, 2025)

It is hard to imagine a function used more often with strings than the Len() function. This simple little function returns the length of any string. The following are a few examples that can work in your macros:

A = Len(MyString)
B = Len("This is a test")

The first line returns the length of the characters in the variable MyString. The second returns the number of characters between the quote marks (in this case, 14—remember that spaces count as characters).

If you want to determine the length of a selection, you follow a bit different approach:

C = Len(Selection)

This line returns the length of the current text selection in the document. Remember when calculating the length of a selection that paragraph marks (hard returns) count as two characters. That is because they are each really a carriage return followed by a line feed, even though all other macro commands treat them as a single character.

Note:

If you would like to know how to use the macros described on this page (or on any other page on the WordTips sites), I've prepared a special page that includes helpful information. Click here to open that special page in a new browser tab.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (11327) applies to Microsoft Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, 2021, 2024, and Word in Microsoft 365. You can find a version of this tip for the older menu interface of Word here: Determining the Length of a String.

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 3 + 2?

2025-07-27 17:09:59

William

The testing I've done in M365 Word suggests a paragraph mark is counted as only one character using the Len function (and that an end-of-cell marker in a table is counted as two characters).

2025-07-26 06:05:49

Kiwerry

Thanks, Allen. The answer to the old question, "How long is a piece of string" is not that easy;-}}

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