Counting Characters in a Selection with VBA

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated February 26, 2022)
This tip applies to Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003

When you are developing macros, it is often helpful to know how many characters are in a text selection. The following VBA macro, CharCount, will display the number of characters in a selection.

Sub CharCount()
    Dim Title As String
    Dim CharCount As Integer
    Dim Message As String

    Title = "CharCount"
    CharCount = Len(Selection)
    Message = LTrim(Str(CharCount)) + " character"
    If CharCount <> 1 Then Message = Message + "s"
    MsgBox Message, vbOKOnly, Title
End Sub

Note:

If you would like to know how to use the macros described on this page (or on any other page on the WordTips sites), I've prepared a special page that includes helpful information. Click here to open that special page in a new browser tab.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (746) applies to Microsoft Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003.

Author Bio

Allen Wyatt

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. Learn more about Allen...

MORE FROM ALLEN

Opening a Workbook and Suppressing Automatic Macros

Want to stop Excel from running any automatic macros that may be stored with a workbook? Here's how to do it.

Discover More

Changing Strikethrough Lines

Want to change the way a strikethrough line appears? It's not as easy as you think, as you find out in this tip.

Discover More

Double Indenting

Indenting a paragraph is easy in Word. In fact, the program provides shortcut keys that make it a snap. Indenting from ...

Discover More

Learning Made Easy! Quickly teach yourself how to format, publish, and share your content using Word 2021 or Microsoft 365. With Step by Step, you set the pace, building and practicing the skills you need, just when you need them! Check out Microsoft Word Step by Step today!

More WordTips (menu)

Saving a Document in a Macro

If you develop a macro to process your document, you may want the macro to save the document to disk. This is easily done ...

Discover More

Understanding the Select Case Structure

Programming structures are an important tool used by any programmer. The VBA language used by Word's macros includes ...

Discover More

Turning Off Screen Updating

When working with macros, you can often speed up processing by turning off the updating of the screen. Best news is that ...

Discover More

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in WordTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

View most recent newsletter.

Comments

If you would like to add an image to your comment (not an avatar, but an image to help in making the point of your comment), include the characters [{fig}] (all 7 characters, in the sequence shown) in your comment text. You’ll be prompted to upload your image when you submit the comment. Maximum image size is 6Mpixels. Images larger than 600px wide or 1000px tall will be reduced. Up to three images may be included in a comment. All images are subject to review. Commenting privileges may be curtailed if inappropriate images are posted.

Notify me about new comments ONLY FOR THIS TIP

Notify me about new comments ANYWHERE ON THIS SITE

Hide my email address

What is 8 - 1?

There are currently no comments for this tip. (Be the first to leave your comment—just use the simple form above!)

This Site

Got a version of Word that uses the menu interface (Word 97, Word 2000, Word 2002, or Word 2003)? This site is for you! If you use a later version of Word, visit our WordTips site focusing on the ribbon interface.