Word count in MS word - counting only amended text
Thread poster: Madeleine MacRae Klintebo
Madeleine MacRae Klintebo
Madeleine MacRae Klintebo  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 13:51
Swedish to English
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Sep 27, 2007

Sorry if this has been asked before (have a vague feeling I've read something similar), but I can't seem to find a relevant thread using Search.

I've got two versions of source document (ca. 30 pages) - original and marked up amended version. Is there any way I can do a word count of the amended text only in MS Word?

Some text has been deleted, some added and some amended. However, I don't care what kind of change has been made, I only want to get an estimate of how man
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Sorry if this has been asked before (have a vague feeling I've read something similar), but I can't seem to find a relevant thread using Search.

I've got two versions of source document (ca. 30 pages) - original and marked up amended version. Is there any way I can do a word count of the amended text only in MS Word?

Some text has been deleted, some added and some amended. However, I don't care what kind of change has been made, I only want to get an estimate of how many words are underlined in the marked up version of the text.

I've got MS Word 2000 and 2002/3 (I'm not at that computer at this moment, but I think the Word version in Office 2003 is 2002).

Any suggestions?

Thanks,
Madeleine
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Fathy Shehatto
Fathy Shehatto  Identity Verified
Egypt
Local time: 15:51
English to Arabic
+ ...
<font color=green><b>Word count updating </b></color> Sep 28, 2007

Dear Madeleine,

I tried to help but I failed, only I could get a way for an update word count

If you need it you can check this thread http://www.reading.ac.uk/its/documents/training/word/fields/

By the sub title of: Examples of using Fields


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Dear Madeleine,

I tried to help but I failed, only I could get a way for an update word count

If you need it you can check this thread http://www.reading.ac.uk/its/documents/training/word/fields/

By the sub title of: Examples of using Fields



Best regards

Fathy Shehatto
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Tony M
Tony M
France
Local time: 14:51
Member
French to English
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SITE LOCALIZER
Not SURE if this works, but you could try it! Sep 28, 2007

I often have a similar problem, but up till now, have dealt with it in a different way.

I assume you are using 'track changes', as you say 'marked-up version'.

Well, I'm not sure if ordinary word count does actually count words that are being tracked (for example, deletions...) — logically, I'd have thought not, but there have been some occasions where I've had a feeling that deleted text was indeed influencing my word counts. Possibly if 'show marked text' is
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I often have a similar problem, but up till now, have dealt with it in a different way.

I assume you are using 'track changes', as you say 'marked-up version'.

Well, I'm not sure if ordinary word count does actually count words that are being tracked (for example, deletions...) — logically, I'd have thought not, but there have been some occasions where I've had a feeling that deleted text was indeed influencing my word counts. Possibly if 'show marked text' is selected, it might be included. IF SO, you may be able to proceed like this (and I emphasize I haven't actually tried this out!):

1) Make sure 'track changes' and 'display marked text' (or whatever those are called in EN, as my version's FR!) are turned on.

2) Do a total word count and note it down.

3) Turn OFF 'track changes'

4) Then use 'search & replace' to delete (i.e. replace with nothing) all modified text, using the various attributes (like strike-thru, colour, underline. etc.) under 'style' to progressively remove, one by one, each bit of modified text.

5) Now do a fresh word count, and then deduct this figure from the one at 2) above

The difference should give you the word count for just the amount of text that has been modified.

Haven't got time to try this for you right now, but I do hope it works for you!
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Antoní­n Otáhal
Antoní­n Otáhal
Local time: 14:51
Member (2005)
English to Czech
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PractiCount Sep 28, 2007

It can count words based on font formatting and styles - I have never tried to use it for counting tracked changes, but using its features it should be a feasible task.

http://practiline.com/

Antonin

[Edited at 2007-09-28 08:13]


Yaotl Altan
 
Ken Cox
Ken Cox  Identity Verified
Local time: 14:51
German to English
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further to Tony's answer Sep 28, 2007

I just tried a simple test with a dummy document. It appears that when changes are made to a document with Track Changes enabled, Word counts *all words* in the document -- unmodified, added, and deleted -- regardless of whether the tracked changes are displayed or hidden.

This make the situation trickier. To obtain a word count of the *net difference* resulting from the changes (word count before the changes versus word count after the changes), you will have to produce two version
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I just tried a simple test with a dummy document. It appears that when changes are made to a document with Track Changes enabled, Word counts *all words* in the document -- unmodified, added, and deleted -- regardless of whether the tracked changes are displayed or hidden.

This make the situation trickier. To obtain a word count of the *net difference* resulting from the changes (word count before the changes versus word count after the changes), you will have to produce two versions of the modified document: one with all changes rejected (the original document) and one with all changes accepted (the revised document). This can be done relatively easily with the Accept/Reject Changes function (simply click 'Reject All' for the first version and 'Accept All' for the second version). The difference between the word counts of these two documents is thus the net change.

If you want a word count of only the *new* text, I don't see any alternative to generating the following two versions of the modified document and comparing their word counts:
- the original document (all changes rejected)
- the modified document with all additions accepted and all deletions rejected, which will have to be generated manually using the Accept/Reject Changes function for each individual change (a time-consuming task with a large document). AFAIK this cannot be done with Find & Replace, since this utility apparently does not recognise the attributes used to mark changed text.
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Tony M
Tony M
France
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It may be simpler than that! Sep 28, 2007

Thanks, Ken, for taking the time and trouble to confirm.

Surely the simplest way for Option A would be to save a dummy copy of the original doc (assuming it exists) with 'track changes' disabled, since under that circumstance, the word count reverts to plain old 'what you see is what you get'; it would then be easy to compare that word count to the word count of the document with 'track changes' enabled... see what I'm getting at?

As for the other problem, I don't think
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Thanks, Ken, for taking the time and trouble to confirm.

Surely the simplest way for Option A would be to save a dummy copy of the original doc (assuming it exists) with 'track changes' disabled, since under that circumstance, the word count reverts to plain old 'what you see is what you get'; it would then be easy to compare that word count to the word count of the document with 'track changes' enabled... see what I'm getting at?

As for the other problem, I don't think your suggestion would quite work, Ken; if you simply accept the deletions but not the additions, and compare that wordcount with the original, you will get only the difference between words deleted and words added. I think you need to make two dummy copies of the document, one with deletions accepted and additions rejected, and one with the reverse; that way, the difference between the 2 word counts should be the nett number of words added, no?
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Madeleine MacRae Klintebo
Madeleine MacRae Klintebo  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 13:51
Swedish to English
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TOPIC STARTER
Thank you everybody Sep 28, 2007

I've tried all of your suggestions, but it seems I have to do a manual copy & paste of all the amended text in to a new document.

Fathy Shehatto wrote:

If you need it you can check this thread http://www.reading.ac.uk/its/documents/training/word/fields/

By the sub title of: Examples of using Fields

Fathy Shehatto



However, this method does not seem to recognise tracked changes as fields.

Toni and Ken:

These kind of solution are what I was looking for, only, again, there seems to be no way to specify tracked/marked-up text.

I do have access to the original, but this, of course, includes deleted sections of text. Any comparison between this document and the amended one will therefore be between: original + deletions and amended + additions.

Antonin:

PractiCount might be the answer, only playing around with it tonight I could find no way of getting it t recognise marked-up text as underlined. I'll try to get more time to read the help section tomorrow.

------

For the moment it seems I have to use a more manual approach - copy & paste all amended sections into a new word document. Not very time efficient, but the most accurate method available.


 
Antoní­n Otáhal
Antoní­n Otáhal
Local time: 14:51
Member (2005)
English to Czech
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Well, it is there Sep 28, 2007

In PractiCount, on the Settings tab, the middle column is for MS Word options - it has a checkfield marked "Revisions," with three dropdown options: count only deleted, count only inserted, count deleted and inserted

Putting "track" in the "search" of PractCount help, you can find it rather easily.

Antonin

[Edited at 2007-09-28 21:42]


 
Madeleine MacRae Klintebo
Madeleine MacRae Klintebo  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 13:51
Swedish to English
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
Antonin - you're an angel Sep 28, 2007

Antoní­n Otáhal wrote:

In PractiCount, on the Settings tab, the middle column is for MS Word options - it has a checkfield marked "Revisions," with three dropdown options: count only deleted, count only inserted, count deleted and inserted

Putting "track" in the "search" of PractCount help, you can find it rather easily.

Antonin

[Edited at 2007-09-28 21:42]


I downloaded a trial version of the Enterprise version of Pracicount and the General icon was automatically selected. When I selected the Applications icon I was given all the options you mention for MS Word, including Revisions.

This is exactly what I was what was looking for in MS Word. I will spend the next 15 days evaluating PractiCount.


Thank you again Antonin.


 
V S Rawat
V S Rawat
India
Local time: 19:21
English to Hindi
+ ...
practiline site not available now. Feb 12, 2015

Server not found

can't find the server at www.practiline.com.

--

The site is not there now.

Could someone tell which software or script it is to count the total nos. of words deleted/ added in track change mode?

Thanks.
--
Rawat


 
Edward Potter
Edward Potter  Identity Verified
Spain
Local time: 14:51
Member (2003)
Spanish to English
+ ...
Practicount won't let you count insertion/deletions without paying Mar 24, 2017

Forget doing this with the demo version. If you try it will say you need to upgrade to the Business Version. I think they were asking about 60 dollars.

 
Nadia Said
Nadia Said
Local time: 15:51
Member (2006)
German to Arabic
+ ...
A macro. Apr 20, 2019

https://translationtherapy.com/counting-inserted-and-deleted-words-in-track-changes/

 
Benkyo
Benkyo
Japan
Local time: 22:51
Japanese to English
Macro is flawed Dec 23, 2021

Thank you for the macro link. It seemed to be just what I needed, so I gave it a go.

The result, 1530 words inserted, seemed a little high, so I needed to confirm it was accurate before I relied on this to charge a client.

I went through the entire 13,000+ word document, deleting everything that wasn't underlined as a new addition, and ran a normal Word count at the end.

690 words.

So, however the macro works, it is unreliable and unsuitable fo
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Thank you for the macro link. It seemed to be just what I needed, so I gave it a go.

The result, 1530 words inserted, seemed a little high, so I needed to confirm it was accurate before I relied on this to charge a client.

I went through the entire 13,000+ word document, deleting everything that wasn't underlined as a new addition, and ran a normal Word count at the end.

690 words.

So, however the macro works, it is unreliable and unsuitable for my purposes.

I'm still looking for a good way to do this without buying/installing 3rd party software.
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Stanislav Okhvat
Stanislav Okhvat
Local time: 17:51
English to Russian
Tool for counting words in tracked changes and alternative approach Jan 6, 2022

Hello everyone,

True, the macro in the mentioned post is not accurate -- it only considers revisions in the main body of the document (not including headers/footers, etc), will count some words several times in certain cases, and will give incorrect results when several users edited the same text.

You can try using Tracked
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Hello everyone,

True, the macro in the mentioned post is not accurate -- it only considers revisions in the main body of the document (not including headers/footers, etc), will count some words several times in certain cases, and will give incorrect results when several users edited the same text.

You can try using Tracked Changes Assistant (link to information about the tool), a small tool included in TransTools+ (plug-in for MS Word). It should be accurate even when there are changes made to the same text by multiple users. The word count may differ slightly from the word count of your CAT tool due to handling of things like slashes between words, etc.
Another approach for counting insertions only is the following:
- Turn off tracked changes mode.
- Use a macro (the macro in the mentioned post needs slight adjustments for this) to apply a red color to all insertions.
- Accept all tracked changes in the document.
- Use Hide / Unhide Text tool (link to information about the tool) to hide everything except red text.
- Import the document into a CAT tool that can ignore hidden text (memoQ, Trados Studio, Memsource, WFP, SmartCAT, etc.)
- Create a word count report.

Best regards,
Stanislav Okhvat
TransTools – Useful tools for every translator
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Word count in MS word - counting only amended text






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