How do you accurately reliably measure word count

Scrivener Scrivener for Windows
1

No draft thingy on my version which is full Version on Windows, recently purchased!!
I seem to have to put things into an MS file for me to count them. Help! :frowning:

2

There will be a difference between Scrivener and Word word counts due to the different algorithms used for counting words.

To see the word count in Scrivener, you need to have the footer bar showing. View -> Layout -> Show Footer View or the keyboard shortcut is Alt + Down.

3

Actually, to see the total word count of your Draft/Manuscript/Script/Thing I’m Writing (the folder can be renamed, and often is in various templates), go to Project->Project Targets. The footer only shows the word count of the currently selected document, or the documents viewed in Scrivenings mode. The Project Targets window shows your Draft word count regardless of what part of your project you are viewing.

4

Project Statistics is what you’ll want for this. If you’re using the NaNoWriMo template, the Draft folder has just been renamed “Manuscript” so Project Statistics will refer to it as such. This will use your compile settings, so it will exclude annotations if you’ve set annotations to be excluded (they should be by default for the NaNoWriMo template) and will include titles, etc. based on your settings in the “Formatting” pane of the Compile sheet.