As someone who has to constandly write to a certain word count, I’m constantly bringing up my document’s statistics in Word so see how close I am to my limit. This morning, when starting an article I decided to look for a simpler way. Well, it turns out that Word (starting with the 2002 version) has a “Word Count toolbar”. To turn it on select View|Toolbard|Word Count from the menus. (Feel free to dock this toolbar wherever you feel it’s appropriate.) Unfortunately, the count doesn’t update as you type (oh how I wish it would) but to get an updated word count for your document all you now need to do is click on the Recount button.
Michael Sauers is currently the Director of Technology for Do Space in Omaha, NE. Michael has been training librarians in technology for the past twenty years and has also been a public library trustee, a bookstore manager for a library friends group, a reference librarian, serials cataloger, technology consultant, and bookseller since earning his MLS in 1995 from the University at Albany’s School of Information Science and Policy. Michael has also written dozens of articles for various journals and magazines and his fourteenth book, Emerging Technologies: A Primer for Librarians (w/ Jennifer Koerber) was published in May 2015 and more books are on the way. In his spare time he blogs at travelinlibrarian.info, runs The Collector’s Guide to Dean Koontz Web site, takes many, many photos, and typically reads more than 100 books a year.
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