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How can I carry out a word count in PDF files?
Thread poster: Eugene Antoine Aubrey Browne
Eugene Antoine Aubrey Browne
Eugene Antoine Aubrey Browne  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 00:04
Member (2007)
French to English
+ ...
Jul 6, 2011

I would appreciate advice on how to carry out a word count of PDF files. I currently have 28 to assess so that I know how many source words are contained in them. I look forward to receiving any help you can provide on how to go about this or which software is considered to be the best. Would you recommend free word counts on the internet or are these to be avoided?
 
Eileen Cartoon
Eileen Cartoon  Identity Verified
Local time: 01:04
Italian to English
Copy into word Jul 6, 2011

If all you need to do is a word count the quickest (but not necessarily the best) thing to do is (presuming the pdf is convertable):

In the Pdf, select Modify > Select all

when the text is highlighted slide the cursor up and down to ensure that everything is highlighted. then Copy and Paste into Word.
If there are a zillion numbers you can eliminate them in Word using the Find & Replace option (Under Find click on the Other Tab and, at the bottom Special to call u... See more
If all you need to do is a word count the quickest (but not necessarily the best) thing to do is (presuming the pdf is convertable):

In the Pdf, select Modify > Select all

when the text is highlighted slide the cursor up and down to ensure that everything is highlighted. then Copy and Paste into Word.
If there are a zillion numbers you can eliminate them in Word using the Find & Replace option (Under Find click on the Other Tab and, at the bottom Special to call up a pull-down menu. Here select Any number) Once you have the number symbol (^#) under find select Replace and leave it blank. If you hit replace all, all the numbers will be eliminated.

Eileen ▲ Collapse
 
Adam Łobatiuk
Adam Łobatiuk  Identity Verified
Poland
Local time: 01:04
Member (2009)
English to Polish
+ ...
One solution Jul 6, 2011

With some PDF files you can select the content, copy and paste it to Word, where you can use the statistics feature. In Acrobat, you need to select the Single page - continuous view.

This will not be possible with scanned or image-based PDFs.
 
Jutta Deichselberger
Jutta Deichselberger  Identity Verified
Local time: 01:04
French to German
+ ...
Anycount 7.0 Jul 6, 2011

does count PDF files, too.
It is not perfectly correct but better than nothing...

Best regards,
Jutta
 
Russell Jones
Russell Jones  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 00:04
Italian to English
OCR Jul 7, 2011

Adam Łobatiuk wrote:

With some PDF files you can select the content, copy and paste it to Word, where you can use the statistics feature. In Acrobat, you need to select the Single page - continuous view.

This will not be possible with scanned or image-based PDFs.


In this case you could use an online OCR service like http://www.abbyyonline.com/en/Home/Index which offers 20 pages a month free and more at minimal cost. This will give you a Word version from which you can do a wordcount.
 
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How can I carry out a word count in PDF files?






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