Use Field Codes to Display a Document's Word Count
I enjoy writing projects in which I don't need to worry about the word count -- I can write as much or as little as I like. More often than not, though, I need to write to a specific word count. And even if you're not a journalist trying to write an article to fit, though, there are probably situations in which you need to hit a specific word count. Here's a little trick to add a word count field into your Word document so you don't have to keep checking the word count tool in the ribbon.
HowTo Geek recently had a short tutorial on using field codes, and I started with that for this little tip.
If you have Word 2007 or 2010, adding a word count field code is a snap. Start by clicking the Insert tab and then click Quick Parts. Choose Fields. In the Field dialog box, scroll down to NumWords, select it, and then click OK.
You'll see a field appear in Word; this is the word count of your document. (Note that it includes the field itself, so if you delete the field before you finalize the document, the count will be one less.)
At this point, you could be done -- just add "words" after the field, put it at the top of our document, and it'll track the number of words. To update it, select the field and press F9 or right-click and choose Update Field.
But we can do better. If you frequently need to add the word count field code to your documents, add it to your AutoCorrect list so you can add it with just a quick shorthand text entry. Here's what I'm suggesting: Start by selecting the field (and the descriptive text "words") that we created a moment ago.
Next , choose File and Options and then click the Proofing tab. Choose AutoCorrect Options. You should see something like 10 words appear in the With field. Change the formatting from Plain text to Formatted text. In the Replace field, ether the shorthand text you want to use to invoke the field; I use *count -- I always use an asterisk at the start of my shorthand text since that makes it impossible to enter by accident. Click OK, and you're done. Now, whenever you create a new document, you can just type *count to get the word count field automatically at the top of the page.
And if all that's too much work for you, you can just add the word count tool to the quick launch toolbar for faster access.