WordCount, characters w/o spaces

[Sean]

I recently had to start using a new computer at work due to a hardware
problem on previous system, and I don't know how to have Word do something my
last computer would do.

I'm a writer in a fast-paced environment, so every shortcut I can take helps
me drastically, and on my last system, I could highlight a line of text, hit
alt+c and look at my WordCount area of the toolbar to see how many characters
including spaces I had highlighted. Since I have a character max, this was a
fantastic help.

On this new system though, whenever I highlight (shift +home/end) and hit
alt+c it shows me words and I have to take the time to go up and click to see
"Characters (with spaces)." This may sound trivial to most, but I assure you
that it adds up over the course of an 8 hour day and has affected my end
output.

Does anyone know how I can set this computer to do as my last one did and
automatically (default) show "Characters (with spaces)" instead of words?

Thanks so much for any help!
Sean

 

[Greg Maxey]

I don't know what specific setup you had previously, but this can be done
easily enough using a macro:

Sub MyCustomCharacterCount()
Beep
Application.StatusBar = "There are " & _
Selection.Range.ComputeStatistics(wdStatisticCharactersWithSpaces) _
& " characters selected."
'Or
'MsgBox "There are " & _
'Selection.Range.ComputeStatistics(wdStatisticCharactersWithSpaces) _
'& " characters selected."
End Sub

Remove the ' if you want to use the msgbox method.

For help installing and using the macro see:
http://www.gmayor.com/installing_macro.htm

 

[Greg Maxey]

Sean,

For added efficiency your could include the selection of text as part of the
macro. From your post it appears that you routinely use Shift+Home and
Shift+End. You could assign keyboard shortcuts to this pair of macros:

Sub MyCustomCharacterCount1()
Selection.HomeKey Unit:=wdLine, Extend:=wdExtend
Beep
Application.StatusBar = "There are " & _
Selection.Range.ComputeStatistics(wdStatisticCharactersWithSpaces) _
& " characters selected."
'Or
'MsgBox "There are " & _
'Selection.Range.ComputeStatistics(wdStatisticCharactersWithSpaces) _
'& " characters selected."
End Sub

Sub MyCustomCharacterCount2()
Selection.EndKey Unit:=wdLine, Extend:=wdExtend
Beep
Application.StatusBar = "There are " & _
Selection.Range.ComputeStatistics(wdStatisticCharactersWithSpaces) _
& " characters selected."
'Or
'MsgBox "There are " & _
'Selection.Range.ComputeStatistics(wdStatisticCharactersWithSpaces) _
'& " characters selected."
End Sub