Well, really the title says it all... I'm at university and I write assignments based on a standardised 2400 characters per page platform. It would be hugely helpful for me to have the amount of characters in a document displayed in the status bar, instead of the number of words, which I really don't care about. Been searching Google and these forums for the last 30 minutes and didn't find anything, so anyone know if it's possible?
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Word for Mac: Changing live word count into live character count
- Thread starter dane0
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I'm not at my Mac, but if clicking, double-clicking, and right / ctrl clicking on the part of the status bar that shows word count don't give you any options, there is probably no easy way to change it. 
I'm pretty sure that with the other fields, such as the field in the status bar of Excel that shows you the sum / count / max / min / average / etc of the selected fields, you just click on it and a pop-up menu lists all of the options that can be displayed in the field.
I'm pretty sure that with the other fields, such as the field in the status bar of Excel that shows you the sum / count / max / min / average / etc of the selected fields, you just click on it and a pop-up menu lists all of the options that can be displayed in the field.Hmm, there's probably no way to do this, as none of that works :-( Interruptive for my work flow, but probably that's what Microsoft has always been about for the computer world
Thanks for the help...
Thanks for the help...
Possibly an Americentric thing also... I cannot recall ever having had character x page limitations placed on me in any higher-educational or publishing environment in the US.
I'm not clear on what you're doing, but is it possible or helpful to use a mono-spaced font and work out the spacing so that your page can only hold the allotted characters? Does this make sense? If you have 2400 characters per page, for instance, find a font and pitch perhaps that does 60 characters / line x 40 lines. Andale Mono is a not so bad example.
You just have to do this once and then save it as a template. After that, you'll always know you have met the character requirement, because you will ALWAYS have met the character requirement.
I'm not clear on what you're doing, but is it possible or helpful to use a mono-spaced font and work out the spacing so that your page can only hold the allotted characters? Does this make sense? If you have 2400 characters per page, for instance, find a font and pitch perhaps that does 60 characters / line x 40 lines. Andale Mono is a not so bad example.
You just have to do this once and then save it as a template. After that, you'll always know you have met the character requirement, because you will ALWAYS have met the character requirement.
2012 update: character counts
You can also select just the text you want character counts for ... then follow llimbo72's suggestion.
You can also select just the text you want character counts for ... then follow llimbo72's suggestion.