Thursday, February 14, 2008

Quick Word Count in Pages


Pages offer a quick, real-time/instant view word count which is easy - and fun!


In Document Inspector (first icon on the left) click on third tab Info. Here you can see the word, line, paragraph, character and even graphics count for your document.

But this isn't all. If you click on your text and start dragging cursor to highlight a selection of text the Inspector gives you the count of all the elements - words etc. as you drag.


Being able to check word count (character count) is important in many ways.

In publishing it is one of the main methods of checking how much space needs to be allocated to copy within the pages of a publication. It is a means of coordinating work between editors, writers and production.

For writers, journalists and translators word count is often used as a valuation tool - you get paid by the word.

Please also read this article, published later on I work in Pages:
Word count in Pages: use two Inspectors

Read more in my new book 'iWork for Mac OSX Cookbook' (2012). Follow me on Twitter at iworkinpages, like my page I Work in Pages on Facebook and add me to your circles on Google+.

14 comments:

  1. Anonymous7:46 am

    Thanks! I am writing a paper and was wondering where that darn word count was!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous8:04 pm

    Thanks for this. I was trying to find the word count feature for the longest time. Don't think I would have ever found it on my own.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous3:31 pm

    AH, thank you so so much!!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Anonymous3:38 am

    does anyone know how to set pages to subtract footnotes/endnotes from the word count?

    ReplyDelete
  5. yes, it's pretty simple:
    click on your main text,
    Command+A - to select all

    Pages will select only the main text, not the footnotes, and you will see the word count for just your main text, without the footnotes.

    Best wishes,
    Alex

    ReplyDelete
  6. Thanks so much for this help. I'm a Mac convert and still learning. Will put you into my Delicious bookmarks for future reference. Cheers Camilla

    ReplyDelete
  7. glad to help, Camilla
    Alex

    ReplyDelete
  8. Anonymous7:36 am

    where abouts do you see the word count?

    ReplyDelete
  9. Sorry, is it not clear from the picture above?
    Alex

    ReplyDelete
  10. Anonymous8:42 am

    I recently noticed that the Pages word count is not calculated correctly. I have reported it to Apple but I thought you guys should be aware of it.
    When the text contains hyphenated words, Pages treads them as individual words for the word count which is incorrect. In education they should be counted as one word and as I am studying at the moment it has become an issue, a small issue, but an issue never the less.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous5:09 am

      I have this issue too. Tables are way off count and I'm not sure why

      Delete
  11. Thanks, that's a very interesting observation!

    ReplyDelete
  12. Thanks so much for sharing this article. Such a great Blog!
    Word Count Software

    ReplyDelete

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