Counting track changes (characters)
Thread poster: Diego Tronca
Diego Tronca
Diego Tronca  Identity Verified
France
Local time: 09:27
Member (2006)
English to Italian
+ ...
May 26, 2020

Hi all,

How can you count the number of characters (excluding spaces) in the track changed text of a Word doc?
I have the previous Word doc, and the newer Word doc with the changes done in Track changes. I need to know how many characters (without counting the spaces) were inserted in the new document.

Thanks.
Diego


 
Michael Davies
Michael Davies  Identity Verified
Denmark
Local time: 09:27
Member (2009)
Danish to English
+ ...
... number of characters inserted in the new document May 26, 2020

I'm not sure if this will give you the required result but could you not calculate the difference in the number of characters between the original document (without changes) and a copy of this with the additional characters inserted (you would have to accept all changes). Both figures can be available from Word (use Word's help function if you are not familiar with how to get the character count).

Hope this helps,

Michael


Diego Tronca
 
Diego Tronca
Diego Tronca  Identity Verified
France
Local time: 09:27
Member (2006)
English to Italian
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
... number of characters inserted in the new document 12:07 May 26, 2020

Thanks. The problem is that there are quite a few deletions as well, so I can't really compare the two documents.

 
Samuel Murray
Samuel Murray  Identity Verified
Netherlands
Local time: 09:27
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
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@Diego May 26, 2020

Diego Tronca wrote:
I need to know how many characters (without counting the spaces) were inserted in the new document.


So, if three characters were deleted and three other characters were added, then do you want "3" or "6" as the answer?


Diego Tronca
 
Diego Tronca
Diego Tronca  Identity Verified
France
Local time: 09:27
Member (2006)
English to Italian
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TOPIC STARTER
Reply to Samuel May 26, 2020

Samuel, the ideal would be to separate the deletions from the insertions, and only count the characters of the insertions.

 
Samuel Murray
Samuel Murray  Identity Verified
Netherlands
Local time: 09:27
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
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A macro May 26, 2020

Diego Tronca wrote:
The ideal would be to ... only count the characters of the insertions.


So, if you can find a way to reject (or accept) all deletions, then you can work it out, right? This page has a macro for that (not tested by me): https://www.datanumen.com/blogs/3-ways-accept-specific-tracked-changes-word-document/


 
RobinB
RobinB  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 03:27
German to English
PractiCount May 26, 2020

Diego Tronca wrote: Hi all,
How can you count the number of characters (excluding spaces) in the track changed text of a Word doc?


I've been using PractiCount for this for very many years. In fact, I'll be using it to calculate a quote today. Sometimes it's a bit slow with very large documents, but it always works, and it's always totally accurate.


 
Diego Tronca
Diego Tronca  Identity Verified
France
Local time: 09:27
Member (2006)
English to Italian
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
Solved May 27, 2020

Hi all,

Thanks for all your answers.
I've decided to ask my client to do it for me, since they have a huge DTP department.

Diego


 


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Counting track changes (characters)






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