[Greg Maxey[_2_]]

If the writer is aware of this condition from the start he or she could
create a unique character style to apply to the reference text and perhaps
come close to a qualified word count using:

Sub ScratchMaco()
Dim oWord As Range
Dim i As Long
i = 0
For Each oWord In ActiveDocument.Range.Words
If Not oWord.Style = "Reference" Then
If Len(Trim(oWord)) 1 Then
i = i + 1
Else
If Trim(oWord) Like "[A-Za-z]" Then
i = i + 1
End If
End If
End If
Next oWord
MsgBox i
End Sub



"Peter T. Daniels" wrote in message
...
Not without considerable tedium, though it might be possible to create
a macro to do this?

Using Ctrl-Clicking and dragging, select all but the references (when
text is selected, word displays the count of selected text: if not
directly in the status bar, then when you click on the count number
there); or, format each reference as Hidden text. (Word doesn't count
Hidden text.)

On Jan 8, 3:03 pm, Leane_88
wrote:
Hi,
I'm writing an essay in which the tutor would like us to not include the
references (Author and Date) within the word count. Is there a way that I
can
exclude any words within the brackets from the word count as they all have
different names etc?
Thanks
Leane