Trados word counting different from the actual word counting Thread poster: Monika Coulson
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Monika Coulson 
Local time: 13:38
Member (2001)
English to Albanian
+ ...
SITE LOCALIZER
I just ran a Trados analysis for a big project that I completed and I got a different number from the actual word number. The word number that Trados gave to me was 3.8% less than the actual number. It makes quite a bit of difference on huge projects.
Any ideas on why would this happen?
Do you trust Trados word counting? I have trusted it so far, but I guess not anymore.
Monika
| | | | Valeria Verona
Chile
Local time: 15:38
Member (2003)
English to Spanish
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Hi!
Unfortunately, I have noticed this too on serveral occasions. I don't know why this happens, though...
The more tools you have to count words, the more results you get!
I'd like to know what other colleagues rely on to count words? When you have different results, which one prevails?
Regards,
Valeria
| | | | Ralf Lemster
Germany
Local time: 21:38
English to German
+ ...
Hi Monika,
I'm not sure if there's such a thing as an "actual" or "definitive" word count - not even when counting manually - as everything depends on convention. AFAIK there are even differences between different versions of Word - hence the existence of special word-count programs.
Have a look at this article from the Trados Knowledge Base, which might explain so... See more Hi Monika,
I'm not sure if there's such a thing as an "actual" or "definitive" word count - not even when counting manually - as everything depends on convention. AFAIK there are even differences between different versions of Word - hence the existence of special word-count programs.
Have a look at this article from the Trados Knowledge Base, which might explain some of the differences.
HTH, Ralf ▲ Collapse
| | | | | certain Word Processors do not count words in certain formats. | Jul 1, 2004 |
You never get an exact count with different software, even with different versions of the same application.
This arises from the fact that applications treat certain formats in different ways.
For example, MS Word does not recognize (count)words in Text Boxes no matter how large they are. Just create a text box, and place 10,000 words in it. When you count, MS Word would indicate 0!!! Therefore, you should be careful if you count documents in MS Word that have plenty of... See more You never get an exact count with different software, even with different versions of the same application.
This arises from the fact that applications treat certain formats in different ways.
For example, MS Word does not recognize (count)words in Text Boxes no matter how large they are. Just create a text box, and place 10,000 words in it. When you count, MS Word would indicate 0!!! Therefore, you should be careful if you count documents in MS Word that have plenty of "Text Boxes"
By contrast, it counts numbers, digits, even dots, etc. as words. For example, in MS Word, "one," counts as 1 word but "one ," counts as 2 words!!! Which means that your comma is a word too!
Therefore, it would be wiser to be flexible about such counts, and allow room for such differences.
h.i.h. ▲ Collapse
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aviloria
Spain
Local time: 21:38
English to Spanish
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One of the main differences between Trados and MS Word Word Count is that Trados does not count numbers, so a sentence like 'Just 3 words' is 3 words for Word and 2 words for Trados.
Alberto
| | | | Monika Coulson
Local time: 13:38
Member (2001)
English to Albanian
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER SITE LOCALIZER | Thank you very much | Jul 1, 2004 |
to everyone who replied. My text was plain MS Word text (no special formatting, no tables.) However, it did have lots of numbers, bullets, etc., so this might have made the difference.
Ralf, the article you put on this thread was very helpful indeed, thank you.
Have a great day everyone,
Monika
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