word count in microsoft word

[merzie]

i am writing a long story and i was wondering when you do a word count is the count the total of the words, the characters with spaces and the characters with no spaces, its just i dont understant the characters part, if someone could explain it woud be a great help

 

[Celtwytch]

It depends on how you set it up. I got this from the Help feature in MS Word:

About word count

If you need to know how many words are in your document, Microsoft Word can count them for you. Word can also tell you how many pages, paragraphs, and lines are in your document, as well as the number of characters, either including or not including spaces.
Use the Word Count toolbar

As you add or delete content, you don't have to click Word Count on the Tools menu each time you want a recount. Instead, show the Word Count toolbar, and click Recount to update the count any time you want.
Count footnotes and endnotes

You can include footnotes and endnotes in the count. If you want to count part of a document rather than the whole, Word can count the footnotes or endnotes that refer to the selected text. You can also select multiple sections of text to count at a time, and the sections do not have to be next to each other.