With only one essay left before finishing yet another university course I'm working on, I've found myself focusing quite intently on the statistics of my document. The word count seems to be just as important as getting the content together, as my deadline looms on the horizon.

You might already be aware that Microsoft Word displays your word count in the bottom left-hand corner of your screen (in the status bar). This total gets updated as you write, making it easy to continuously keep track of your progress. Did you know that you can access much more statistical information beyond the word count, though?

For those of you with other statistical needs, you should try going to the 'Review' tab of the ribbon, and clicking on the 'Word Count' button. I personally find this name to be a bit misleading, as you will find that this option brings up a window that displays a number of other statistics besides the word count: page count, character count (with and without spaces), paragraph count, and line count.

A checkbox right at the bottom allows you to specify whether or not to include the text found in textboxes, footnotes and endnotes. How awesome is that? The only complaint I have about this feature is that it doesn't allow you to keep the window open while you work... but it is just a click away, so it's not too much trouble to find when you need a status update.

Happy writing, and good luck to any fellow students that are in the process of pumping out papers!

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