An Easy Way to Count Items

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated February 27, 2025)
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

Alerts About Approaching Due Dates

You may use Excel to track due dates for a variety of purposes. As a due date approaches, you may want that fact drawn to ...

Discover More

Hiding a Huge Number of Rows

Need to hide a large number of rows? It's easy to do if you combine a few keyboard shortcuts. Here are several techniques ...

Discover More

Word Indexes and Special Tables

One of the finishing touches used in some types of documents is an index or a special table, such as a table of contents. ...

Discover More

The First and Last Word on Word! Bestselling For Dummies author Dan Gookin puts his usual fun and friendly candor back to work to show you how to navigate Word 2019. Spend more time working and less time trying to figure it all out! Check out Word 2019 For Dummies today!

More WordTips (ribbon)

Using Manual Line Breaks with Justified Paragraphs

If you use justified paragraphs, you know that if you press Shift+Enter, it can lead to some odd spacing between words ...

Discover More

Sticking with the Dashes

By default, dashes don't "stick" to the text that follows them. Here's one way around this normal formatting convention.

Discover More

Replacing Some Smart Quotes

Smart quotes look great in a document, but may not be right for all instances of quote marks or apostrophes. If you need ...

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 three less than 3?

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.