Counting words in a... PDF file?! Thread poster: Flavio Ferri-Benedetti
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Dear friends,
I am quite desperate. My clients will only pay per source word... and the source is a PDF file. Only thing we've been able to get from this is an RTF file which nearly eliminates all words with special format (italics, bold...) - thus making the wordcount useless.
Now, I need to know how to count source words in a trustworthy way or else I'll get mad
Any advices?
Th... See more Dear friends,
I am quite desperate. My clients will only pay per source word... and the source is a PDF file. Only thing we've been able to get from this is an RTF file which nearly eliminates all words with special format (italics, bold...) - thus making the wordcount useless.
Now, I need to know how to count source words in a trustworthy way or else I'll get mad
Any advices?
Thanks
Flavio ▲ Collapse
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You can use finereader or other OCR program to scan the document, keep all the format, and give an accurate wordcount.
Edwal
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PDFCount is a lovely little plug-in for Acrobat.
You can try it out for free for 15 days (http://www.pdfcount.com/trial.html), it might be just what you need now without too much effort.
HtH,
Roberta
| | | | | PDFCount... :( | Apr 17, 2004 |
Roberta Anderson wrote: PDFCount is a lovely little plug-in for Acrobat. You can try it out for free for 15 days ( http://www.pdfcount.com/trial.html), it might be just what you need now without too much effort. HtH, Roberta
Hi Roberta,
I tried it, but it says that my PDF has "subset embedded fonts" - and then gives me the same wordcount as the corrupted RTF file.
I am downloading FineReader (trial version), I hope it works... it's a huge program, argh!
Flavio
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Trudy Peters 
United States
Local time: 11:44
German to English
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| Have you asked the client? | Apr 17, 2004 |
Why don't you ask the client if they have a wordcount? They may have the file in another format or be otherwise able to provide a wordcount. How else would THEY know if your source count is accurate, unless they manually count the words?
Just a thought.
Trudy
| | | | Ahmed Ismail
Egypt
Local time: 18:44
English to Arabic
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| It is the client's job | Apr 17, 2004 |
Mainly, it is the client's job..
They should find a away to do it, unless it is a lazy project manager who wants you to do his job.
You have two options:
If you or the client have Adobe Acrobat 5.0, convert the pdf file to rtf format...and then it is solved.
- You can try Total Assistant..it is a very good tool for the word count..
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Ahem...
My client is the one who sent me the wordcount AND the RTF file, actually. I have contacted him, of course, but I am looking for a solution while waiting, so we save time.
I am trying Fine Reader right now, I hope I understand how to count words...
Flavio
| | | | | Further benefit of FineReading a pdf | Apr 17, 2004 |
Flavio Ferri Benedetti wrote:
I am downloading FineReader (trial version), I hope it works... it's a huge program, argh!
Cheer up! Time well spent!
It might have dawned on you already, but here it is.
Using FineReader you'll have a soft file you can translate using your favorite CAT, therefore making up for the time wasted downloading FineReader. As the Bard goes, Every cloud...
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| FineReader worked! | Apr 17, 2004 |
Yahooooo!
With FineReader I have been able to "read" all text blocks in my PDF file, copy and paste them in a Word file and count words! Whew, 9,383 against 8,640! Thank goodness I checked!
Love,
Flavio
| | | | | A great tool | Apr 18, 2004 |
Flavio Ferri Benedetti wrote:
Yahooooo!
With FineReader I have been able to "read" all text blocks in my PDF file, copy and paste them in a Word file and count words! Whew, 9,383 against 8,640! Thank goodness I checked!
Love,
Flavio
Glad to hear that!
Edwal
[Edited at 2004-04-18 02:26]
| | | | | Finereader is good but... | Apr 18, 2004 |
Attention! sometimes it make mistakes changing things like i to l, so you have to read the document carefully!
Regards
Toledo
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quote]Flavio Ferri Benedetti wrote:
I am quite desperate. My clients will only pay per source word... and the source is a PDF file.
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What's the problem? Just count it with PractiCount.
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