Word Count
Counts the words and characters, with or without spaces, in the current selection and in the whole document. The count is kept up to date as you type or change the selection.
To access this command...
Choose Tools - Word Count
How does Office count words?
In general, every string of characters between two spaces is a word. Dashes, tabs, line breaks, and paragraph breaks are word limits, too.
Words with always visible hyphens, as in plug-in, add-on, user/config, are counted as one word each.
The words can be a mix of letters, numbers, and special characters. So the following text counts as four words: abc123 1.23 "$" http://www.example.com.
To add a custom character to be considered as the word limit, choose Tools - Options - Office Writer - General and add the character into the Additional separators field.