How do I get a word count for a PDF doc or for a selected passage?

Forum|Forum|13 years ago
September 10, 2012
11 replies
155985 views

Participant

Does/can Adobe Reader have a feature that provides automatic word counts for documents? Translators need such numbers (actually, several metrics can be used, not just raw word count) as the primary basis for their fees.

T

Test Screen Name

Legend

I've never heard of translators being able to do their work successfully with PDFs alone, still less with Adobe Reader.

They are probably working in Word or FrameMaker, and these do have word counts.

If someone other than the translator needs a word count and has only the final PDF, perhaps the best option is to copy and paste to Word for counting metrics.

Thom Parker

Community Expert

Well then, you need a word count tool for Acrobat. Since you have Acrobat Pro, you can easily create a "Command" from the "Action Wizard" toolset. The JavaScript for this command has already been provided in this thread.

Once the "Command" is created, it can be used over and over. In fact, it can be exported and loaded into Acrobat on another system.

Or you could just download and install the free word counter tool provided by @JR Boulay

https://www.abracadabrapdf.net/utilitaires/utilities-in-english/abracadabratools_en/

Yay JR, Thanks!!

Thom Parker - Software Developer at PDFScriptingUse the Acrobat JavaScript Reference early and often

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