Last week we talked about how to track your word counts. Today: How to get the counts to match in the pop-up and at the bottom of your screen.
I’m a big fan of the word count tracker in Scrivener. In case you’re unfamiliar, go to the Projects drop down menu, then click on Project Targets (shortcut: command shift T), and you get this handy little pop-up that helps you track how much you’ve written on any given day. Especially when I’m working toward a goal, I find the it super helpful. (FYI – you can also track progress in any given section of your project – check out my post on that by clicking here.)
But for some reason, the total word count listed in my word count tracker (the little pop-up window) never matches the word count at the bottom of the screen when I’m looking at the whole document. It’s always bugged me. Which count is right? Because that’s a 10,000 word difference…
Well I finally figured it out. When you’re looking at the Word Tracker pop-up window, click the little button labeled “options.” That gives you a second-level pop-up that looks like this.
You have to make sure those top two check boxes are UNCHECKED. Then go ahead and click “okay.” You may have to click around in the binder a little to get the changes to show.
Alternately, you can leave those two boxes checked and just make sure that your entire manuscript is included in the compile. What got my word counts all screwy was that, once upon a time, I compiled just a portion of my manuscript for printing and never went back to check those boxes again.
So there you have it. Just another little trick to help you use Scrivener like a boss.
Super helpful! I found this answer after doing a random Google search. So cool to find the answer from a writer I actually know! Thank you, April!
Hi Ruth! You didn’t know I was such a Scrivener nerd, did ya? LOL Glad you found what you needed. Cheers!
THANK YOU!!!!
You’re welcome!
Hi April, I went to check as you mentioned, and it hasn’t fixed my issue. My compiled word count is set to include all document, minus comments and annotations. Where I’m seeing a difference is at the small search bar, when you hover, it should show the word count of your entire manuscript, plus the current scene. Mine has been stuck at 99,896 for awhile now, but my total word count in Statistics and Compiled is 103,366.
Any suggestions or should I contact Scrivener?
Thanks!
Jennefer
You are an angel! This was driving me crazy!
You’re welcome!
Hi! This hasn’t fixed my problem. When I highlight my draft, it says 77k words. But the top tool bar says 73k. It’s driving me bananas! I’ve checked the compile, and it’s the same selection as my writing stats selection. I’m not sure what else to try–advice?
Disregard–I realized the difference was if comments/annotations are counted in word count total or not.
Oh, good. So glad to hear you figured it out. I will keep that in mind for the future. Thanks for sharing!
Thank you for your article. A couple of questions:
What is the difference between “word count” and “total word count” on a given scene/file in outline view. Usually they match. Sometimes they don’t. When they don’t match the “Word count” is usually a very low number or 0 – makes me think those are the words in the chapter folder?
Another question – but first some background.
I brought in a draft from the outside and have all 80 some chapters as folders with minimal information and each scene as a file within the folder. For multi-scene chapters I did the split at selection to accomplish this. I still see the original scenes altogether in the folder/chapter view but I think that is ok?
However, in a couple of instances, my total word count was double what it should have been and it turned out that it was counting the words both in the folder and in the scene. IT is possible I screwed things up initially with copy and paste so I went back through and was able to remove an overage -duplicate count of 10,000 words. Is there a way to review this issue to make sure I have everything square?
Thanks!
Hi, Barbara,
Getting the word counts to match in a single file SHOULD be the same as getting them to match throughout the document. Did you try going to export to see what documents you’re counting?
As for the second question, it sounds like you accidentally duplicated the words in each folder by putting them into a file. It’s hard to say without seeing what you’re seeing, but my advice would be to just take a little time to go through and organize so that there’s only one copy. I sometimes create folders in my binder to stick things like this in case I want to come back to them.
Let me know how it goes.
Cheers,
April
Scrivener has always shown me all the text and the total word count for everything in a folder, if I click on the folder. Suddenly, there is no text in the window and no word count when I click a folder. The only way I can get all the text and word count to show is to select all the text files in the folder. Do you know what that problem might be?
If you’re working in Mac’s Mojave I know there have been a few update challenges. If it persists, try contacting Scrivener (even just through Twitter). I’ve always found them to be super responsive. Another reason I really like the software: good customer service.