Blank lines are mostly due to extra paragraph marks (hard returns). Go to
Edit Replace and keep on replacing paragraph mark paragraph mark (^p^p) with
paragraph mark (^p) until that message tells you 1 replacement has been made.
Then do the counting.

"Carol" wrote:

I do typing work for various companies and doctors. As many companies like
to pay by the number of lines, (and they don't want to pay for blank lines),
I need to be able to calculate this. As far as I know, MS Word includes the
blank lines in the line count and there is no way to change this to make it
add up only the lines which actually have words on them. Am I correct? If
there is a way to make it count only the lines with words, and not blank
lines, I would really appreciate it if someone would let me know. Otherwise,
I am forced to do this manually, which cuts into my time, productivity, and
ultimately income.