Online Word Count Tools
Most translators have their own favourite way of establishing word counts and know which tool is best for an accurate calculation for their language. Below is an example of a basic word count tool.
Most translators have their own favourite way of establishing word counts and know which tool is best for an accurate calculation for their language. Below is an example of a basic word count tool.
If you wrote the document that you need translated with Microsoft Word or another word processor you don't need to use online word count tools. With Microsoft Word, you will find the word count displayed by default on the bottom left. The value is a word count of the text selected. If no text is selected, the value is the word count of the entire document. Should the word count not appear in this position, you can go to the word count toolbar by selecting Word Count in the Tools menu.
Word counts are one of the most popular measures to calculate translation costs and are widely accepted throughout various industries. The reason for this is that the amount of words in a text can be easily established by the means of copy and pasting the text in question into tools that are freely available, by opening a document with specific word count applications or simply by using the word count function in most word processors such as Microsoft Word.
Yet there is a slight problem with merely looking at the amount of words in a text from a translator's perspective, as some languages tend to combine several words into one, which means the translator actually has to deal with several words instead of just one. Additionally, not all word count tools will give the same word count, as they are programmed in different ways, for example to count words with a hyphen as one word, whereas other tools would count it as two words. With the increase of websites and software applications to be translated, the problem of excluding tags and strings from word counts has emerged, and the perfect calculation method has yet to be found, as again, one solution might work for one language, but not for another.
We understand that finding the best way of calculating translation costs cannot solely based on word counts, but for many clients it proves to be the easiest to apply and understand. Therefore we calculate our standard rate on a per-word basis, yet we are more than happy to discuss other options with you and advise your company about other means that might be more appropriate for your translation and localisation needs.
