Thursday, May 14, 2009

Word count and document info


Here are the links to articles about the word count in Pages:

Quick Word count in Pages
Word count in Pages: Use two inspectors
How to subtract footnotes/endnotes from the word count
iWork'09 released
Measuring iWork/Pages - against what?
A Point of Reference for iWork/Pages Users


Word count was one of the 'missing' features in earlier versions of Pages. Many users complained it was difficult to find and awkward to use. In the post Quick Word Count in Pages I showed that, in fact, word count in Pages is an easy and flexible tool.

The article has become and still remains one of the top read on this blog, even though in Pages'09 the word count is displayed at the bottom of an open document.

Word count is an important professional tool which has many uses. Please let me know if you have developed a special technique or are struggling to find a way of doing a particular task.

The Inspector on the left shows word count for this post. Click on the image to enlarge it.

10 comments:

  1. Wow great links and Tuts on this site! love it keep up the good work!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Alonso2:21 pm

    I've recently found Pages, and I'm only sorry that I didn't discover it earlier (as many other surprises since switching, now a year ago). Alex, your blog is one of those happy findings too. I've used Word for a long time, particularly for translations and others, and I really went nuts when trying to fix many images/graphics, etc., on Word (lousy program for this). Pages is exactly what I was looking for, and hope it will get much better (your comment about why Apple doesn't develop this more is a good one). And it does need a really good user group as you suggest. Here's a question I can't find anywhere: Any idea of how to include footnotes with a kb shortcut in Pages? Thanks anyway for the blog

    ReplyDelete
  3. I simply don't know. Insert menu doesn't have a single shortcut. But I see how useful it could be for someone using footnotes a lot.
    Let me know if you find a way of doing it.
    Thanks, Alex

    ReplyDelete
  4. Anonymous6:52 pm

    Is there any way to have the word count feature exclude articles, such as "a," "an," and "the"? My son's school wants a word count that excludes articles in his essays ("brilliant" plan, I know, but he has to live with it!) Thanks!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Try Command+F to open the Find window. Search for space a space, subtract. Then search for space an space, subtract. Next, search for space the space, subract.
      Not automatic but I can't think of another way.
      Hitting space bar in the Find window is necessary so that the machine separates articles from letter combinations within words.
      Hope this helps.

      Delete
  5. I'm trying to print word count at the end of my document and so far the only solution I've found involved code, which frankly terrifies me. Is there some user-friendly way of doing this?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Catriona, you can simply type the word count by hand, can't you? No code needed.

      Delete
  6. Thanks, but I'm submitting an assignment that has a maximum word count and I'm trying to get down to the maximum, so it would be really nice to know when I've got there:-)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Catriona, it's easy: make sure that under the View menu in your open Pages document the "Show Word Count" option is activated. In the bottom left corner of the document there will be a tab that shows the actual word count as you type.
      Type more to reach the assigned word count, or delete to go down to the requiered word count.
      You can also highlight (select) a portion of the text to see the word count of the particular portion, a paragraph or a chapter.
      Hope this helps.

      Delete

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