Word counter with x word alert

[mulderfox]

Hi!

I am unable to find a feature or a macro or a add-on for word that would allow me this:
I want to be alerted (by a pop up window, or just a ding sound) every x words written (for instance, every 1000 words). This is a productivity helper for me.

Does anyone know how to approach this? I know there is a built-in word counter in word, but I don't know how to harness that to my purpose.

Thanks!

[Guessed]

We generally avoid this sort of thing because it would require a macro to run on every single edit and keystroke.

Can we talk you into another option that is less CPU-intensive? Like do the count when the document is saved.

[mulderfox]

Originally Posted by Guessed

We generally avoid this sort of thing because it would require a macro to run on every single edit and keystroke.

Can we talk you into another option that is less CPU-intensive? Like do the count when the document is saved.

Thanks, but the whole purpose is to have a counter running in the background and popping up notifications/alerts when I reach X number of words. If it counts when I save, it defeats the purpose.

[macropod]

Word has no in-built facility for this. You can, of course, have Word display a word count on the status bar. Anything more sophisticated would entail a complex macro that hooks into Windows itself for the monitoring.

[Guessed]

You could use the WindowSelectionChange event which won't fire on every single thing you can do in the file but will fire annoyingly often.
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/lib...or=-2147217396

Your code would need to store a variable to track the previous incremental value so that the word count can be compared against that to see when an increment has tripped the trigger
eg. Start with a value of zero words, the trigger stores this value and then the code keeps firing but the code effectively does nothing until you trip past 1000 words and the sound plays and the new stored value is 1000. If the user deletes words to go below 1000 or pastes/types words to go past 2000 then the sound plays again and the stored value is reset.

[slaycock]

You can use the Application.onTime event to run a specified macro at a certain time. So if you set up a macro to run every X minutes this should give you the feedback you are seeking.

[macropod]

Originally Posted by Guessed

You could use the WindowSelectionChange event which won't fire on every single thing you can do in the file but will fire annoyingly often.

The problem there, though, is that the WindowSelectionChange event only fires when you change the selection - which doesn't happen while you're typing. Hence it won't tell you when you've reached a certain word count.