Counting words in a... PDF file?!
Trådens avsändare: Flavio Ferri-Benedetti
Flavio Ferri-Benedetti
Flavio Ferri-Benedetti
Schweiz
Local time: 21:20
Spanska till Italienska
+ ...
Apr 17, 2004

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


 
Edwal Rospigliosi
Edwal Rospigliosi  Identity Verified
Spanien
Local time: 21:20
Medlem (2004)
Engelska till Spanska
+ ...
FineReader Apr 17, 2004

You can use finereader or other OCR program to scan the document, keep all the format, and give an accurate wordcount.

Edwal


 
Roberta Anderson
Roberta Anderson  Identity Verified
Italien
Local time: 21:20
Medlem (2001)
Engelska till Italienska
+ ...
PDFCount Apr 17, 2004

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


 
Flavio Ferri-Benedetti
Flavio Ferri-Benedetti
Schweiz
Local time: 21:20
Spanska till Italienska
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
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


 
Trudy Peters
Trudy Peters  Identity Verified
USA
Local time: 15:20
Tyska till Engelska
+ ...
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
Ahmed Ismail  Identity Verified
Egypten
Local time: 22:20
Engelska till Arabiska
+ ...
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..


 
Flavio Ferri-Benedetti
Flavio Ferri-Benedetti
Schweiz
Local time: 21:20
Spanska till Italienska
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
Notes Apr 17, 2004

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


 
Valentina Pecchiar
Valentina Pecchiar  Identity Verified
Italien
Engelska till Italienska
+ ...
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...


 
Flavio Ferri-Benedetti
Flavio Ferri-Benedetti
Schweiz
Local time: 21:20
Spanska till Italienska
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
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


 
Edwal Rospigliosi
Edwal Rospigliosi  Identity Verified
Spanien
Local time: 21:20
Medlem (2004)
Engelska till Spanska
+ ...
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]


 
Fernando Toledo
Fernando Toledo  Identity Verified
Spanien
Local time: 21:20
Tyska till Spanska
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


 
Oksana Kornitskaja
Oksana Kornitskaja  Identity Verified
Local time: 22:20
Tyska till Ukrainska
+ ...
PractiCount Apr 19, 2004

quote]Flavio Ferri Benedetti wrote:
I am quite desperate. My clients will only pay per source word... and the source is a PDF file.

---------
What's the problem? Just count it with PractiCount.


 


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Counting words in a... PDF file?!






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