Word number of words in section

In this article, there will be 3 methods for you to count the number of words for sections in your Word document.

It’s easy to get the total number of words of a document. But there is no function in Word to tell us the number of words of a section. And given to the fact that we prefer to put contents of the same topic in one section, such as organizing a chapter while writing a book, it’s necessary for us to come up with workarounds to get the section count.   Following are 3 approaches which require you running a macro.

Method 1: Count the Number of Words for Current Section

1. Firstly, place cursor inside a target section.
2. Then you need to open VBA editor in Word. Click “Developer” and then the “Visual Basic” command. In case you can’t find “Developer” in the Ribbon, then press “Alt+ F11” instead.
3. Next click “Normal” project in the left column.
4. Then click “Insert” tab.
5. On that drop-down menu, choose “Module”.
6. Open new module by double click.
7. Now in the open module, paste bellowing codes:

Sub CountWordsOfCurrentSection()
  MsgBox ("There are " & Selection.Sections(1).Range.ComputeStatistics(wdStatisticWords) _
         & " words in current section.")
End Sub

1. Lastly, click “Run” or press “F5” to execute codes.

You will receive a message box, showing the total number of current section, such as below:

Method 2: Count the Number of Words for a Specific Section

Let’s say you have been working on a book and setting each chapter as an individual section. Then to know how many words you’ve written in a chapter, you can utilize this method.

1. Follow above steps to install and run a macro.
2. Just replace macro with this one:

Sub CountWordsOfSpecificSection()
  Dim strSecNum As String
  Dim objDoc As Document
 
  Application.ScreenUpdating = False
 
  Set objDoc = ActiveDocument
  strSecNum = InputBox("Enter a section number here:", "Enter Section Number") 
  MsgBox ("There are " & objDoc.Sections(strSecNum).Range.ComputeStatistics(wdStatisticWords) _
          & " words in section " & strSecNum & ".")
  Application.ScreenUpdating = True
End Sub

1. And running it, there will be an input box. In the “Enter Section Number” box, input the section number and click “OK” to move on.

The result is shown on a message box.

Method 3: Count the Number of Words for All Sections in a Document

As the subtitle suggests, this way shall get you total number of words of each section in a document and list them on a message box.

1. First of all, open target document.
2. Still, you have to repeat steps in method 1 to install and run the macro.
3. And this time, change with this macro:

Sub CountWordsOfEachSectionInDoc()
  Dim objDoc As Document
  Dim nNumberOfSection As Long
  Dim strText As String
 
  Application.ScreenUpdating = False
  Set objDoc = ActiveDocument
  nNumberOfSection = objDoc.Sections.Count
 
  For nNumberOfSection = 1 To nNumberOfSection
    strText = strText & "There are " & objDoc.Sections(nNumberOfSection) _
              .Range.ComputeStatistics(wdStatisticWords) & " words in section " & nNumberOfSection & "; " _
              & vbNewLine
  Next nNumberOfSection
 
  MsgBox strText
 
  Application.ScreenUpdating = True
End Sub

Here is the possible outcome:

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Please Note:
This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Word versions: 2007 and 2010. 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: Word Count for a Section.

One of the benefits of fields is that you can insert dynamic information within your document. When the field is updated, it is replaced with whatever information is current relative to the field in use. For instance, you can use the NumWords field to insert the number of words in the document. When the field is updated, it is replaced with however many words are then in the document.

If you want to find out the number of words in a section, and have it dynamically placed in a document, then you are out of luck. There is no field that will return this information. You can find it out manually by selecting the text in the section and then choosing the Word Count tool, but that obviously doesn’t satisfy the desire to have a value that can be inserted into your document and automatically updated.

This means that you will need to rely on a macro to get the desired word count. If you just want to know the number of words in each section of your document, the following macro can be helpful.

Sub WordCount()
    Dim NumSec As Integer
    Dim S As Integer
    Dim Summary As String

    NumSec = ActiveDocument.Sections.Count
    Summary = "Word Count" & vbCrLf

    For S = 1 To NumSec
        Summary = Summary & "Section " & S & ": " _
          & ActiveDocument.Sections(S).Range.Words.Count _
          & vbCrLf
    Next

    Summary = Summary & "Document: " & _
      ActiveDocument.Range.Words.Count
    MsgBox Summary
End Sub

This simply steps through each section, determines the word count in that section, and displays the summary information in a message box. This does not provide a way to dynamically insert the information in the document, but it does provide an illustration of how you can find the word count of a single section.

A variation on the technique allows you to automatically insert the word count for a specific section at the location of a bookmark within your document. Let’s say that you have a bookmarked called «WordCount» that you have defined. This bookmark specifies the place where you want the number of words in the second section of your document. The following macro will determine the word count for the specified section, and then insert the text at the location of the bookmark.

Sub InsertWordCount()
    Dim oRange As Word.Range
    Dim sBookmarkName As String
    Dim sTemp As String

    sBookmarkName = "WordCount"
    With ActiveDocument
        sTemp = Format(.Sections(2).Range.Words.Count, "0")
        Set oRange = .Bookmarks(sBookmarkName).Range
        oRange.Delete
        oRange.InsertAfter Text:=sTemp
        .Bookmarks.Add Name:=sBookmarkName, Range:=oRange
    End With
End Sub

The macro could be easily called from other macros, such as one that runs when the document is opened, saved, or printed. That way the word count would be updated at all the normal times when a field is automatically updated.

Author Bio

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…

Word count refers to the total number of words in a document. Counting your words might seem very obvious because as you type, you can see your count increase with each character on the status bar. However, sometimes your word count might come with specific details, such as ‘Endnotes and footnotes are not included in the counting.’ Some professors might require you to exclude these and will look out for them as they grade your work.

This article will be a guide on how to count only the words in a specific section.

1.    Select that portion of the text with your mouse or keyboard

Highlight the entire text or section you want to count.

2.    Select the ‘Review’ tab on the ribbon

Go to ‘Review’ on the ribbon. When you select it, you will see ‘Word Count’ in the top left under ‘Thesaurus.’

3.    Open the Word Count dialog box to see how many words are in that section.

It is important to note that Word Count can include or exclude footnotes, endnotes, and text boxes. However, it is an ‘all or nothing’ kind of feature. Either you include all footnotes, endnotes and textboxes, or none.

A dialog box will appear.

At the bottom, you will see a box next to ‘Include text boxes, footnotes, and endnotes.’ If it is checked, uncheck it.

Above it, you will see statistics with numbers next to them: pages, words, characters (no spaces), characters (spaces), paragraphs, lines.

Now you know how many words are in that particular section.

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