WD97: Word Count Appears Inaccurate

• Microsoft Word 97 for Windows

SYMPTOMS

When you use the Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications Words property to return a word count, the number of words returned appears to be inaccurate.

CAUSE

The Words property returns a collection that represents all the words in a range, selection, or document. The collection includes all punctuation and paragraph marks in the selection or the document.

For example, if you attempt to determine the word count of the following three lines of text using the Words property, the result is 21 words:

This is x number of words<return> This is x number of words<return> This is x number of words<return>

WORKAROUND

To return only the number of words in a document or a selection, exclusive of paragraph marks and punctuation, use the Dialogs object instead of the Words property.

For more information about the Dialogs object, while in the Visual Basic for Applications Editor, click the Office Assistant, type "Dialogs" (without the quotation marks), click Search, and then click to view "Dialogs Object."

MORE INFORMATION

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The Dialogs object returns a word count that does not include paragraph marks or punctuation. Using the example from the "Cause" section, the Dialogs object returns a count of 18 words.

The following Visual Basic for Applications code shows the difference between using the Words property and the Dialogs object method to return a word count for a document.

   Sub CountWords()
      'Retrieve the number of words including paragraph marks and
      'punctuation.
      'This returns the same result as if you used the Word Count command
      '(Tools menu).
      Set wdDTWC = Dialogs(wdDialogToolsWordCount)
      wdDTWC.Execute
      dlgwordcount$ = wdDTWC.Words

      'Retrieve the number of words from the Words collection.
      selwordcount$ = ActiveDocument.Words.Count

      MsgBox "Word Count from Tools Word Count: " & dlgwordcount$
      MsgBox "Word Count from Words Collection: " & selwordcount$
   End Sub