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 Word in Microsoft 365


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:

  1. Select all the items. (In this case I selected all the movie titles.)
  2. Display the Home tab of the ribbon.
  3. Click the Numbering tool in the Paragraph group. Each item (movie) is numbered by Word.
  4. 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.
  5. 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 Word in Microsoft 365.

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. ...

MORE FROM ALLEN

Deleting Caption Labels

Define a label to be used in a caption, and you may later want to delete that label. Here's how you can easily make the ...

Discover More

Catching Single-Letter Spelling Errors

There have been times when I've reviewed my writing and found lots of "lone letters," detached by a single space from the ...

Discover More

Creating a Document Clone

If you need to work with a copy of a document rather than the original document, you can use Word's Open dialog box to ...

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)

Selecting a Sentence

Need to select an entire sentence? It's easy by making one small adjustment to how you click the mouse.

Discover More

Meaningless Text

Need to quickly put some text into a document, even if that text is essentially meaningless? Here's how to put this type ...

Discover More

Smart Quotes are Incorrectly Replaced

Not able to replace smart quotes as you want? Here are some ways that you can be sure that every smart quote is changed, ...

Discover More
Subscribe

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.

What is three more than 2?

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.

Videos
Subscribe

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

(Your e-mail address is not shared with anyone, ever.)

View the most recent newsletter.