It seems like every time Microsoft releases a new version of Office, they move everything around! You get used to seeing one thing under one menu and then next version of Office moves that option to another menu! Grrrr. I’ve upgraded to Office 2010 and one of the most common features I use is the Character/Word Count.
Of course, I could not immediately find it and had to go flipping through all the ribbons before I finally saw it! By default, in Word 2010, it’s located on the Review tab under the Proofing section.
Clicking on that will give you not only the number of words, but also other stats like pages, characters with and without spaces, paragraphs and lines.
I still find this quite annoying since I use it so often, so I wanted a quicker way to access this same info. Luckily in Word 2010, there is an option to add the word count to the status bar at the bottom. Just right-click on the status bar and you’ll see an option for Word Count.
Once you select that, you’ll see the word count at the bottom left of the status bar:
That’s pretty much it! If you want, you can also add Word Count to your quick access toolbar by right-clicking on the icon in the Review tab and choosing Add to Quick Access Toolbar.
Now it’ll also show up at the very top, but this is really no different than it being in the status bar, it’s just a personal preference. You have both options.
As an extra bonus, I’ll just throw in a few more features that I used a lot but took a minute to find in Office 2010. For example, where is the Find & Replace in Word 2010? On the home tab, at the very far right, click on Replace.
Where is spell check in Word 2010? Again, this is on the Review tab under Proofing.
And finally where is the developer tab for those of us who need it? For that, you need to click on File, Options and then click on Customize Ribbon. Under Main Tabs, you need to check the box next to Developer Tab.
This will allow you to open Visual Basic and record macros, etc. If you’re looking for something else in Word 2010, let us know in the comments and we’ll get back to you! Enjoy!
