Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Word versions: 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and 2021. 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: Displaying Quick Document Statistics.

Displaying Quick Document Statistics

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated September 26, 2022)
This tip applies to Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and 2021


Word tracks all sorts of information about your documents. If you know where to look, you can quickly display much of that information. For instance, if you want to quickly determine the number characters, words, lines, paragraphs, and pages in your document, you can display the Review tab of the ribbon and click the Word Count tool in the Proofing group. Word displays the Word Count dialog box, and quickly calculates the statistics about the document. (If you are working on a huge or complex document, the calculations may take a short amount of time.) (See Figure 1.)

Figure 1. The Word Count dialog box.

Notice at the bottom of the dialog box is a check box that indicates whether Word should include information in the footnotes and endnotes in its calculations. You should select this option, as desired. When you are done viewing the statistics, click on the Close button.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (12379) applies to Microsoft Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and 2021. You can find a version of this tip for the older menu interface of Word here: Displaying Quick Document Statistics.

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. ...

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