diff --git a/src/buffer_funcs.cpp b/src/buffer_funcs.cpp
index c3e277c433..ff4512b5c6 100644
--- a/src/buffer_funcs.cpp
+++ b/src/buffer_funcs.cpp
@@ -179,13 +179,19 @@ Buffer * newUnnamedFile(FileName const & path, string const & prefix,
  * are similar but, unfortunately, they seem to have a different
  * notion of what to count. Since nobody ever complained about that,
  * this proves (again) that any number beats no number ! (JMarc)
+ * We have two use cases:
+ * 1. Count the words of the given range for document statistics
+ * - ignore inset content without output. (skipNoOutput == true)
+ * 2. Count the words to present a progress bar for the spell checker
+ * - has to count whole content. (skipNoOutput == false)
  */
-int countWords(DocIterator const & from, DocIterator const & to)
+int countWords(DocIterator const & from, DocIterator const & to,
+			   bool skipNoOutput)
 {
 	int count = 0;
 	bool inword = false;
 	
-	for (DocIterator dit = from ; dit != to && !dit.empty(); ) {
+	for (DocIterator dit = from ; dit != to && !dit.atEnd(); ) {
 		if (!dit.inTexted()) {
 			dit.forwardPos();
 			continue;
@@ -199,10 +205,11 @@ int countWords(DocIterator const & from, DocIterator const & to)
 			inword = false;
 		} else if (!par.isDeleted(pos)) {
 			Inset const * ins = par.getInset(pos);
-			if (ins && !ins->producesOutput()) {
-				//skip this inset
+			if (ins && skipNoOutput && !ins->producesOutput()) {
+				// skip this inset
 				++dit.top().pos();
-				if (dit >= to)
+				// stop if end of range was skipped
+				if (!to.atEnd() && dit >= to)
 					break;
 				continue;
 			}
diff --git a/src/buffer_funcs.h b/src/buffer_funcs.h
index f7dd645df3..97449cc4b1 100644
--- a/src/buffer_funcs.h
+++ b/src/buffer_funcs.h
@@ -47,7 +47,8 @@ Buffer * newUnnamedFile(support::FileName const & path,
 Buffer * loadIfNeeded(support::FileName const & fname);
 
 /// Count the number of words in the text between these two iterators
-int countWords(DocIterator const & from, DocIterator const & to);
+int countWords(DocIterator const & from, DocIterator const & to,
+		bool skipNoOutput = true);
 
 /// Count the number of chars in the text between these two iterators
 int countChars(DocIterator const & from, DocIterator const & to, bool with_blanks);
diff --git a/src/frontends/qt4/GuiSpellchecker.cpp b/src/frontends/qt4/GuiSpellchecker.cpp
index 9e9da468dc..4ee9953f02 100644
--- a/src/frontends/qt4/GuiSpellchecker.cpp
+++ b/src/frontends/qt4/GuiSpellchecker.cpp
@@ -270,8 +270,8 @@ bool GuiSpellchecker::initialiseParams(string const &)
 
 	DocIterator const begin = doc_iterator_begin(&buffer());
 	Cursor const & cur = bufferview()->cursor();
-	d->progress_ = countWords(begin, cur);
-	d->total_ = d->progress_ + countWords(cur, doc_iterator_end(&buffer()));
+	d->progress_ = countWords(begin, cur, false);
+	d->total_ = d->progress_ + countWords(cur, doc_iterator_end(&buffer()), false);
 	d->count_ = 0;
 	return true;
 }