WD2000: Word Count Appears Inaccurate Using VBA Words Property

ID: Q212705

The information in this article applies to:

Microsoft Word 2000

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

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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 24 words:


Sub GetWords()
   MsgBox ActiveDocument.Words.Count
End Sub

This is x number of words.
This is x number of words.
This is x number of words.

WORKAROUND

To return only the number of words in a document or a range, excluding paragraph marks and punctuation, use the ComputeStatistics method instead of the Words property.

The ComputeStatistics method returns a word count that does not include paragraph marks or punctuation. Using the sample text from the "Cause" section, the following code using the ComputeStatistics method returns a count of 18 words.


Sub GetWords()
   MsgBox ActiveDocument.Range.ComputeStatistics(wdStatisticWords)
End Sub

For more information about ComputeStatistics, in the Visual Basic Editor, click Microsoft Visual Basic Help on the Help menu, type "statistics" in the Office Assistant or the Answer Wizard, and then click Search to view the topic.

MORE INFORMATION

For more information about using the sample code in this article, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

Q212536 OFF2000: How to Run Sample Code from Knowledge Base Articles

REFERENCES

For more information about getting help with Visual Basic for Applications, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

Q163435 : Programming Resources for Visual Basic for Applications

Additional query words: vb vba vbe


Keywords          : kbmacro kbusage kbdta kbdtacode kbwordvba word97 wd2000 
Version           : WINDOWS:2000
Platform          : WINDOWS 
Issue type        : kbprb

Last Reviewed: May 13, 1999