How to Do a Word Count in Microsoft Word (2023)

FAQs

Is Microsoft Word Count accurate? ›

That is because different writing platforms have different ways of calculating the word count of a file. For instance, Google Docs and Microsoft Office will give you two different word counts—even though the text being processed is the same! Thus, they are not entirely reliable.

Overall, it's best to stay within the word count limit or range — it's provided for a reason! Writing too much will likely result in your essay being cut off, and writing too little may cause readers to think that you aren't truly interested in their school. If no range is given, remember to stick to 400-600 words.

Word count includes everything in the main body of the text (including headings, tables, citations, quotes, lists, etc). The list of references, appendices and footnotes2 are NOT included in the word count unless it is clearly stated in the coursework instructions that the module is an exception to this rule.

This can depend on your course requirements. The general rule is that word count includes everything in the main body of the text - including headings, tables, citations, quotes, lists, etc.

Word limits, then, are not arbitrary or there to save money or time. They are there to help us as writers focus our thoughts, our reading and our research.

The word limit will tell you what is the maximum number of words you are allowed to use to write the assignment. In some cases, there may also be a minimum number of words.

Do markers check word count? ›

Markers should check the word count of a submission by downloading the work from the submission package (eg Canvas) and highlighting the text which should be counted.

All you need to do is copy your entire document and paste it into NoteTab. Then, within NoteTab, choose Tools | Text Statistics | More. It presents an analysis of the word frequency, including percentages.

Rarely will you see a word limit higher than around 650 words (over one single-spaced page). College essays are usually pretty short: between 150 and 650 words. Admissions officers have to read a lot of them, after all! Weigh your words carefully, because they are limited!

If you exceed the word limit in a noticeable way, the admission officers may just stop reading your essay beyond the decided word count. What it means is that if you were asked to write an answer in 300 words, and you wrote it in about 350 words, they would simply not read the last 50 words.

Word limit penalties

Overlong essays will be penalised according to the following rule: 1% of the maximum obtainable mark will be deducted for every 100 words, or part thereof, over the word limit.

It is possible to write under the word count and you will get no fixed penalty. But will it impact your score? Writing a short essay which is under 250 words will definitely impact your score and not in a good way.

The online application won't accept essays that are below 250 words or over 650 words. Your essay must stay within the word count limit. So what should you aim for? The ideal word count for your Common App essay is between 500 and 650 words.

As a rule, a word count is a target. Get within 10% either way and you've met the requirement. A strong paper that goes 20% over or under might be acceptable, but with a warning. 30% or more might require a revision or suffer some grading down.

Main application essays are generally 500-650 words. For example, the Common Application, which can be used to apply to more than 800 colleges, requires an essay ranging from 250-650 words. Similarly, the Coalition Application, which has 150 member schools, features an essay with a recommended length of 500-550 words.

What counts as a word in a word count? ›

Unless you have selected some text, Word counts all text in the document, as well as the characters, and displays them in the Word Count box as the Statistics.

Overlong essays will be penalised according to the following rule: 1% of the maximum obtainable mark will be deducted for every 100 words, or part thereof, over the word limit. So, exceeding the word limit by 1-100 words incurs a deduction of 1%; exceeding by 101- 200 words incurs a deduction of 2%; and so on.

You can lose marks for both not meeting the word count and going over it. Markers usually allow a buffer of 10%, which means if your word count limit is 1,000 words, you can go up to 1,100 words.

Below are estimated paragraphs to words conversions: 1 paragraph is 100 – 200 words for essays, 50 – 100 words for easy writing. 2 paragraphs is 200 – 400 words for essays, 100 – 200 words for easy writing. 3 paragraphs is 300 – 600 words for essays, 150 – 300 words for easy writing.

It's less common to need the character count, but it's just as easy to find via the ribbon's Review tab. Word tracks many statistics for you: the total number of pages, paragraphs, line, words, and characters. Word distinguishes between the total number of characters in your document with or without including spaces.

The word count menu shows you how many words you have in your document, along with the number of pages, characters, lines, and even paragraphs.

A Page Setup dialog box will display, go to Document Grid tab, and check the box of Specify line and character grid. You could specify the value under Characters to limit the characters per line and modify the value under Lines to limit the lines per page.

While probably not the original reason for the 80 character limit, a reason that it was accepted widely is simply reading ergonomics: If lines are too short, text becomes hard to read because you must constantly jump from one line to the next while reading.

A single SMS message technically supports up to 160 characters, or up to 70 if the message contains one or more Unicode characters (such as emoji or Chinese characters).

Character count helps users know how much text they can enter when there is a limit on the number of characters.

What is character limit? ›

Most of the time, spaces, letters of the alphabet, numbers, and punctuation all count toward a character limit. For example, if you are composing a tweet, the 280-character limit includes everything you type.

\n is a way of representing a newline character in various languages and programs but as the name suggests, a newline is only stored in a file as a single character.

4000 characters (not words, so includes spaces) or 47 lines of text, whichever comes first. No formatting such as bold, underline or italics. Avoid using any non-standard characters (standard characters in this context . , ; #) £ signs will be replaced by GBP and this can impact the character count.

The 80 character's limit has its roots in IBM Punch Card where the data or instructions were stored on card. The earlier days did not have any magnetic tapes and all to share data with other computers etc. You can only store Maximum 80 of Characters on the punch card.