Chapter Word Count

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Declan
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Chapter Word Count

Post by Declan »

Greets,

I can't find any reference to finding the word count of an individual section (chapter). In certain types of writing, it is desirable to have similar word counts for the different sections, but when editing different parts in parallel keeping track of this becomes difficult.

I think I've figured out that this is not yet possible in Mellel, but maybe someone can recommend a workaround. I suppose I could keep the different chapters in separate documents, but this would have other disadvantages.

I suppose I'm overlooking the obvious, so if anyone will be so kind as to point out the obvious to me, I'll be most grateful.

Thanks.
soliphint
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Re: Chapter Word Count

Post by soliphint »

One way you can do it is to select the section you want counted and its count will appear in Statistics.
Declan
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Re: Chapter Word Count

Post by Declan »

I know that I can do that by selecting the text in the editing window. But that can be quite lengthy a process. It would be nice to be able to do that by selecting the sections in the Outline panel, but no matter what I select there I get only the total document word count.

Thanks for your response. Is there a quick way to select all the text in certain sections using (for example) the Outline panel?
ozean
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Re: Chapter Word Count

Post by ozean »

A nice way to implement this would be in conjunction with the outline pane: If you click on an entry in the outline pane the contents of that chapter will be counted and the result displayed in the selection part of the statistics palette.

Edit: hehe, seems we had the same idea!
drleper
Got the styles thing figured out
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Re: Chapter Word Count

Post by drleper »

Old thread, but I'd like to throw my support behind this idea. It would be nice if when you clicked on an outline heading (in the outline panel), you got stats for that section in the stats panel (in addition to the whole doc stats too).
vinesy
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Re: Chapter Word Count

Post by vinesy »

Also useful would be the option to have a word count of all occurrences of a particular style (e.g. body), in order to have a word count that excludes table of contents, bibliography etc.
the_DZA
Got the auto-title mojo working
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Re: Chapter Word Count

Post by the_DZA »

I agree, this would be really helpful. To have section or sub-section word counts would be great. To implement it with the outline pane would be one neat trick, but a more comprehensive solution would also be good.

I currently have an Excel spreadsheet with chapters with word counts in them which I have to update manually.

Computers? Save time?

Possibly....
valentina
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Re: Chapter Word Count

Post by valentina »

Hello,

I would also like to add a vote to the united front for the addition of chapter word count in mellel!
that would be a super time saver
Feanaaro
Already downloaded the guide
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Re: Chapter Word Count

Post by Feanaaro »

It would be useful to have a way to know the word count per auto-title level.
Meanwhile, I use a "shortcut". If you hit delete while selecting a title in the outline, all the text under that title is deleted. If you then do cmd+z (undo), the text is restored and automatically selected, and you can know the word count. Much faster than manually selecting the text for long chapters.
ozean
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Re: Chapter Word Count

Post by ozean »

Neat trick!
tika-tika
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Re: Chapter Word Count

Post by tika-tika »

Since Mellel seems to focus on writers, here are some word count feature requests:

1. Option to show word count for each section in the "Outline" pane.
2. Word count by style (ie user can check off styles that are included in the word count such as just headings and body, excluding footnotes and tables)
3. Word count progress indicator. Sometimes I forget what the word count limit is. (See Scrivener) Especially useful if matched with a due date time indicator. This way, the user can see how what percentage left to write in what percentage of time.
4. Word count by time period (ie track how many words written per day)
elal
Got the styles thing figured out
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Re: Chapter Word Count

Post by elal »

Hi Everyone,

This thread has been going for over six years, yet these rather basic functions have still not been implemented. Maybe Mellel doesn't see text between auto titles as sections, making the implementation difficult? Couldn't we define sections for the word count? Or exclude sections? Scrivener does well with this but it treats each section as a seperate document..

I'm using Mellel to write a 4000 word paper, and it is very annoying to have to highlight everything except my title page, abstract, table of contents, references, and appendixes. The word counts are extremely important for my university. Every 100 words over is a whole letter grade penalty. I can't imagine how annoying this would be for my upcoming 15,000 word dissertation.

Being able to command+click on auto titles would be ideal, but not revolutionary. The dreaded Word can certainly do that.

Has anyone found any time saving workarounds? Shift+fn+up arrow to highlight a page at a time doesn't work, nor does shift and clicking on the page up arrow within Mellel.

Cheers,
ELAL
typofi
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Re: Chapter Word Count

Post by typofi »

I'd like to upvote this feature request too. Please implement some easy way to see word/character counts for sections.

Seven years since this was first suggested and we are still waiting.

Having word count for sections would be really, really useful. In fact, it is a serious lack in Mellel at the moment. Especially if Mellel is aimed at academic writing then it really needs to implement this.
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