An Easy Way to Count Items

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated October 17, 2020)
This tip applies to Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and 2021

A while back I was working with a document that actually contained a list of movies in my home video library. Each movie title was on a single line, but as far as Word was concerned, each was a single paragraph. (In other words, each movie title had a "hard return" at its end.)

I got to wondering how many movies I had in my library, so I used a tried-and-true simple way to find out:

Select all the items. (In this case I selected all the movie titles.)
Display the Home tab of the ribbon.
Click the Numbering tool in the Paragraph group. Each item (movie) is numbered by Word.
Press the Right Arrow on the keyboard. Word displays the very end of the list where you can now see how many items are in the list.
Press Ctrl+Z to undo the numbering.

That's it—quick and easy and you can tell how many items are in whatever group of items you selected in step 1.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (13332) 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...

MORE FROM ALLEN

Importing Custom Lists

Custom lists are handy ways to enter recurring data in a worksheet. Here's how you can import your own custom lists from ...

Discover More

ExcelTips: Times and Dates

Excel is great at storing all types of data, including times and dates. ExcelTips: Times and Dates provides the ...

Discover More

Error Creating Event Handlers

If you are getting an error when you try to create an event handler, it could be related to a long-known bug in Excel. ...

Discover More

Do More in Less Time! Are you ready to harness the full power of Word 2013 to create professional documents? In this comprehensive guide you'll learn the skills and techniques for efficiently building the documents you need for your professional and your personal life. Check out Word 2013 In Depth today!

More WordTips (ribbon)

Talking to Yourself

Need to keep notes about a document, but you don't want others to see those notes either on-screen or on-paper? Here's an ...

Discover More

Better Ways to Insert Symbols

The traditional way to insert symbols into a document is to use the Symbol dialog box. This tip looks at ways other than ...

Discover More

Making Highlighting Disappear when Typing

Select a highlighted word or phrase and start typing, and Word maintains the highlighting on what you enter. If this ...

Discover More

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in WordTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

View most recent newsletter.

Comments

If you would like to add an image to your comment (not an avatar, but an image to help in making the point of your comment), include the characters [{fig}] (all 7 characters, in the sequence shown) in your comment text. You’ll be prompted to upload your image when you submit the comment. Maximum image size is 6Mpixels. Images larger than 600px wide or 1000px tall will be reduced. Up to three images may be included in a comment. All images are subject to review. Commenting privileges may be curtailed if inappropriate images are posted.

Notify me about new comments ONLY FOR THIS TIP

Notify me about new comments ANYWHERE ON THIS SITE

Hide my email address

What is 7 - 7?

There are currently no comments for this tip. (Be the first to leave your comment—just use the simple form above!)

This Site

Got a version of Word that uses the ribbon interface (Word 2007 or later)? This site is for you! If you use an earlier version of Word, visit our WordTips site focusing on the menu interface.