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huge difference in trados and ms word wordcounts
Thread poster: Translatus.org
Translatus.org
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Nov 5, 2003

Now I know Ms word doesnt count headers and footers and text boxes but we have a 29 page document with no headers no footers and no text boxes, however trados counts over a 100 more words than ms word does. Can anyone help me with this and suggest a reason?

Thanks
Simon Varley
TransLatus.
 
Paul Stevens
Paul Stevens  Identity Verified
Local time: 21:44
Member (2003)
Spanish to English
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It seems to always happen Nov 5, 2003

Simon,

I have also noticed that there tends to ALWAYS be a different wordcount between Word and Trados, which is normally only a small percentage difference.

I note that you consider 100+ words over 29 pages to be "huge". I would venture to suggest that the difference is minimal in view of the size of the document.

As to why it happens, I'm not totally sure, but I seem to recall reading somehwere that Trados tends to counts, for example, "..." as 3 words. ... See more
Simon,

I have also noticed that there tends to ALWAYS be a different wordcount between Word and Trados, which is normally only a small percentage difference.

I note that you consider 100+ words over 29 pages to be "huge". I would venture to suggest that the difference is minimal in view of the size of the document.

As to why it happens, I'm not totally sure, but I seem to recall reading somehwere that Trados tends to counts, for example, "..." as 3 words. Other than that, I have never seen any real explanation for it. ▲ Collapse
 
Jørgen Madsen
Jørgen Madsen  Identity Verified
Local time: 22:44
English to Danish
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Has been discussed before... Nov 5, 2003

Type in "word count" in the Search field on your left and find explanations for this problem.
 
Translatus.org
Translatus.org
Local time: 22:44
English to German
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TOPIC STARTER
none of them cover my problem. Nov 5, 2003

Jørgen Madsen wrote:

Type in "word count" in the Search field on your left and find explanations for this problem.


Unfortunately I know all the reasons why MsWord counts are normall higher...counting bullets as words etc. However why is trados count higher?
doc has no hidden text,
no header or footer,
no table of contents or bookmarks,
Its just plain ordinary text....where are the 100 words etc coming from!
 
Peter Linton (X)
Peter Linton (X)  Identity Verified
Local time: 21:44
Swedish to English
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What is a word? Nov 5, 2003

One answer to your question is anotjer question - how you define a "word". I did a comparison some months ago with this French phrase:
L'argent de Louis-Philippe
MS Word finds 3 words, MetaTexis finds 4, and WordFast finds 5. Which is right? They all are.
 
Romuald Pawlikowski
Romuald Pawlikowski  Identity Verified
Local time: 22:44
Member (2004)
English to Polish
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A bit off-topic -- Trados and DejaVu wordcounts Nov 6, 2003

Speaking about huge differences in wordcount. I had to export PowerPoint slides to rtf to prepare Trados wordcount estimation, after exporting all files I analyzed them in Trados. The wordcount was ca. 9000 words. Then I imported all the files to DejaVu and calculated wordcount: the result was 17000 words. And this is what I call a HUGE difference

Best regards,

Romuald

[Edited at 2003-11-06 00:54]
 


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