Cumulative word count...

[DavidSweeneyBear]

This is step 1 of a much more complex process I'd like to achieve using javascript - unfortunately with no javascript skills whatsoever!

What I have at the moment is a javascript plugin (abacadabra tools) which will give me the word count for an individual page (whichever page my cyrsor is on) in a message box... it's a start!

I'd like to get a cumulative word count for each page of a document and be able to create text output at the bottom of each page with that number in  it... 

Can anyone advise if this is at least theoretically possible?

[JR Boulay]

I'm the developer of the free abracadabraTools (not abacadabra tools), you just gave me an idea for the next version.

Thank you.

[DavidSweeneyBear]

Glad to hear it... I look forward to that 🙂

[try67]

Yes, is it, both theoretically and practically.

All you need is a simple counter and a loop, like so:

var counter = 0;
for (var p=0; p<this.numPages; p++) {
	var numWords = this.getPageNumWords(p);
	counter+=numWords;
	console.println("Number of (total) words on page " + (p+1) + ": " + counter);
}

If you want to add this value to the page itself you can use a field or an annotation, or even a watermark.

[DavidSweeneyBear]

Brilliant - that's both elegant and effective... can the jscript generate the field, annotation or watermark automatically?

[try67]

Yes, it can, by using the addField, addAnnot and addWatermarkFromText methods, respectively.

[DavidSweeneyBear]

Sorry to have to ask, but google hasn't helped me... what would be the syntax for getting the addField function to use the "counter" var to add a field on the current page, and where/how would I insert that in the "loop" you defined earlier?

[try67 · Accepted solution]

Here you go, it will add a field to the bottom-left corner of each page with the words count:

var r = [5, 25, 50, 5];
var counter = 0;
for (var p=0; p<this.numPages; p++) {
	var numWords = this.getPageNumWords(p);
	counter+=numWords;
	//console.println("Number of (total) words on page " + (p+1) + ": " + counter);
	var f = this.addField("PageText"+p, "text", p, r);
	f.readonly = true;
	f.defaultValue = counter;
	f.value = counter;
}

[DavidSweeneyBear]

Thank you so much @try67  that works a charm!