Word Count at bottom of page is incorrect

[Libby]

Hi all,

Very weird word count issue on my new Macbook Air. OS X 10.8.4, Mac Office 14.1.0.

I love the word count at the bottom of the page, and especially the featurethat it tells you how many words you're up to, out of how many in total, so if you have notes after the main body of your work you don't have to keephighlighting the relevant section.

However, my document keeps telling me different things. The bottom-of-screen word count it is currently saying "6,548 words" but when I actually clickon the word count the in-window count tells me 7,045. I pasted the whole lot into a new document, which then showed 7,045 as the bottom-of-screen count, so that's obviously the correct one.

This morning, first thing the document displayed over 7,000, but has now dropped, which is what made me realise it was wrong. Now though, nothing seems to be able to make the original document catch up, and when I add or delete words it counts upwards or downwards from 6,548.

I've tried unselecting and reselecting footnotes, but it just went down to 6,065 (which incidentally appears to be the correct footnoteless number, asthe in-window count agrees with that) and then back up to the arbitrary 6,548.

Evidently my document can't "see" 500-odd words, but I'm at my wits' end trying to figure out why!

Obviously I can use a fresh document which has a consistent word count, butif there's a solution I'd like to know what it is so I know I can trust the count.

No tracked changes being used.

Thanks,

Libby

 

[libbygnightingale]

Just to add one more bizarre detail: I've just pasted the whole shebang into a word doc again, and the count changes by one single word. In the original, the word count is 7,045. In the pasted new version, it displays at the bottom of the screen as 7,046. When I click on it, it displays 7,045 in thewindow.

What the heck?!?! I'm tearing my hair out!

 

[Michael Vilain]

Just to add one more bizarre detail: I've just pasted the whole shebang into
a word doc again, and the count changes by one single word. In the original,
the word count is 7,045. In the pasted new version, it displays at the bottom
of the screen as 7,046. When I click on it, it displays 7,045 in the window.

What the heck?!?! I'm tearing my hair out!

This may be a bug or it may be that the status line is showing a
different way it's calculating word count from the other way you're
using it.

My advise is to let go of word count numbers and just friken write.
Track the difference between start of work and end of work. Use
whichever method you like to track this figure. Stay on your daily word
count goal and stop looking at metrics.

If this was a cholesterol or blood pressure number, I figure you're the
type who would obsess about that too. Just let it go.

Worry about something important. Like NSA spying on you or global
warming.

 

[Patty Winter]

My advise is to let go of word count numbers and just friken write.
Track the difference between start of work and end of work. Use
whichever method you like to track this figure. Stay on your daily word
count goal and stop looking at metrics.

Did Libby say she had a "daily word-count goal"? I didn't see that.
She may be writing to a template that has a maximum number of words.
I encounter that all the time in writing grant proposals and in
submissions for MOOCs.


Patty

 

[Michael Vilain]

Did Libby say she had a "daily word-count goal"? I didn't see that.
She may be writing to a template that has a maximum number of words.
I encounter that all the time in writing grant proposals and in
submissions for MOOCs.


Patty

I'm sure there are lots of sites that you can either submit a file or
paste the contents into a form and have it do a word count for you.
Some sites might even measure the readability index or grade level.

Frankly, I don't see much she can do to fix this problem. Microsoft may
have a bug in counting words. Perhaps the status line is picking up
meta characters from formatting that you've edited and deleted by are
still present in the document.

If this is for some grant or a proposal, find out how they calculate
word count. According to one article, publishers calculate it from a
galley proof where it's been typeset and paginated in a proportionally
spaced font, then multiply by 250.

A Google search "calculating word count for manuscripts" gave over
2Million hits. I'm sure you'll find some tool that you can use to
calculate the word count. Use that to gage the accuracy of what Word
reports.

Or you could just file a bug report with Microsoft.

 

[libbygnightingale]

Thanks everyone - it's a really bizarre bug and I can't find anyone else with it on t'internet so I shall do as you suggest and file a bug report withMS. Another strange thing is that if I click into a footnote and make eventhe smallest edit, such as backspace-space, when I return to the main bodyof the document, the word count is temporarily correct. Then it reverts pretty much instantly. Weird.

My advise is to let go of word count numbers and just friken write.
Track the difference between start of work and end of work. Use
whichever method you like to track this figure. Stay on your daily word
count goal and stop looking at metrics.

If this was a cholesterol or blood pressure number, I figure you're the
type who would obsess about that too. Just let it go.

Worry about something important. Like NSA spying on you or global
warming.

Thanks for this valuable advice Michael. Sadly, my desire for a correct document word count is neither a personal fetish of mine nor a dogmatic eccentricity, but in fact a regulation on my Master's dissertation imposed by my university. I will be sure to pass your suggestion on to them.

 

[Michael Vilain]

Thanks everyone - it's a really bizarre bug and I can't find anyone else with
it on t'internet so I shall do as you suggest and file a bug report with MS.
Another strange thing is that if I click into a footnote and make even the
smallest edit, such as backspace-space, when I return to the main body of the
document, the word count is temporarily correct. Then it reverts pretty much
instantly. Weird.




Thanks for this valuable advice Michael. Sadly, my desire for a correct
document word count is neither a personal fetish of mine nor a dogmatic
eccentricity, but in fact a regulation on my Master's dissertation imposed by
my university. I will be sure to pass your suggestion on to them.

This must be a dissertation for a non-scientific degree. Stanford and
UCLA had nroff and LaTeX macros for their dissertations that you insert
into the text to format the document per the department requirements.
And tools on the servers to do accurate word counts of the text files
after stripping the markup out.

Word for a dissertation is problematic in that page count and word count
aren't as accurate, as you've discovered. Try asking your thesis advisor
what their solution in such cases. If it's a known problem, they may
have a workaround.

If it's just you, then you have a computer problem and something is
messed up on your system.

 

[althaf.marsoof]

Hey. I have the same bug. As soon as I open my document, the word count seems to be working. But a bit later, it goes bonkers!

 

[mr.t.c.adams]

I'm also having the same problem. If anyone has any insight they would be very much appreciated.

 

[Michael Vilain]

Hi all,

Very weird word count issue on my new Macbook Air. OS X 10.8.4, Mac Office 14.1.0.

I love the word count at the bottom of the page, and especially the feature that it tells you how many words you're up to, out of how many in total,so if you have notes after the main body of your work you don't have to keep highlighting the relevant section.

However, my document keeps telling me different things. The bottom-of-screen word count it is currently saying "6,548 words" but when I actually click on the word count the in-window count tells me 7,045. I pasted the wholelot into a new document, which then showed 7,045 as the bottom-of-screen count, so that's obviously the correct one.

This morning, first thing the document displayed over 7,000, but has now dropped, which is what made me realise it was wrong. Now though, nothing seems to be able to make the original document catch up, and when I add or delete words it counts upwards or downwards from 6,548.



I've tried unselecting and reselecting footnotes, but it just went down to 6,065 (which incidentally appears to be the correct footnoteless number, as the in-window count agrees with that) and then back up to the arbitrary 6,548.

Evidently my document can't "see" 500-odd words, but I'm at my wits' end trying to figure out why!

Obviously I can use a fresh document which has a consistent word count, but if there's a solution I'd like to know what it is so I know I can trust the count.

No tracked changes being used.

Thanks,

Libby

This is really late in the game, but I stumbled across this Automator workflow that may offer you an alternative to Word's inaccurate word count.

http://osxdaily.com/2014/01/27/word-character-counter-service-mac-os-x/

Hope it helps.