There is a need to have a dedicated word count feature, which is able to do 
partial/selective word counts as in all commercial packages.

While it is possible to word count for the whole document by looking at 
document properties, this feature is inadequate. The user should be able to 
highlight a paragraph or section and do a word count on that section alone. 

This feature is necessary for students writing essays and others who need to 
stick to a limit in their documents.