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ThomWdUser's avatar
ThomWdUser
Copper Contributor
Jun 30, 2026

Word count dropped but the number of words hasn't changed

Dear All

Please help with this problem.

I’ve been working on a document for months. It's about 95,700 words. Two days ago, the count dropped by about 700 words. The same thing had happened in two other versions of the same document that I hadn't opened for a few days. I follow the counts closely. There's no rational explanation. It was the same when I opened the documents, via my external hard drive on a different PC. I did a virus scan, that was OK. I hadn’t deleted any words. If I opened the documents on Microsoft Online, it showed the correct word count. Other, unrelated Word documents were not affected.

Microsoft support tried to resolve this but couldn’t. Then I fixed it myself by uninstalling and reinstalling Microsoft 365/ Office. But now two days later it’s come back. I work on this project every day. It’s vital that I see the correct word count. Having to use Microsoft Online would be a pain.

Please, does anyone know how to correct this, permanently?

Regards

Thom

2 Replies

  • henry_collins's avatar
    henry_collins
    Tin Contributor
    Jul 02, 2026

    That sounds more like a Word word count display issue than actual content being lost, especially since Microsoft Online shows the correct count. try forcing Word to recalculate by selecting the entire document and updating fields (F9), then save it as a new .docx file. If the count is still wrong, try disabling add ins and opening Word in Safe Mode to rule out an add-in causing the problem. 

  • Charles_Kenyon's avatar
    Charles_Kenyon
    Bronze Contributor
    Jul 02, 2026

    Using Word online is not only a pain, but may cause problems if your document has any complexity.s

    How do you know that the number of words is changing? There are a number of "word counts" in Word.

    The one in the Status bar is usually good but may take a while to catch up when you open a document. Try hitting Ctrl+End followed by Ctrl+Home to force a quicker update.

    You can include a DocProperty Words field to give you a Word count in your document and eventually delete it when you no longer need it.

    To do that, type "DocProperty Words" without the quotation marks. Then select that and press Ctrl+F9 followed by F9. On your computer you may have to include the Fn key when using function keys.

    Which update and version of Word are you using? File > Account > About Word

    Are you using tracked changes?

    Does the problem show up if you start Word in safe mode? Open Office apps in safe mode on a Windows PC - Microsoft Office