Re: Countchars

["M.C." fenda@xxxxxxxx]

Carl Distefano wrote:
> "FM" stands for ForMat. Because the /NF carve-out isn't limited to
> FootNotes; it can be applied to any embedded command, whether it
> contains printable text or not (RH, RF, NT, LB -- anything). See
> the fourth example. My abbreviation isn't obvious? Perhaps I'd
> better write it out as format1,format2, or command1,command2.
OK. The similarity between FN1/FN2/FN3 and FM1/2... was the origin of my
 misunderstanding.
> Actually, it doesn't count note numbers either. It can't count any
> value that's calculated at the time of printing and not physically
> present in the file when displayed in eXPanded view.
Don't worry. If I like to have the exact number of characters, it's only
necessary to add the number of footnotes. But it's a detail without any
importance.
> You know, Manuel, this routine started out as a little pedagogical
> tool to show that the number of characters visible on the screen
> doesn't always coincide with the number of bytes represented by
> those characters (and to quantify the difference). I never dreamed
> that anyone would use it to gauge the length of printed output! The
> recent mods push it in that direction, but you can only stretch a
> concept so far. I do think, at this point, we've got about as far
> as we can go.
I agree. I started to use your routine when I had to produce weekly a
very brief article for a newspaper. The editor gave me a number of
characters and I had to adjust my text to that size. From then on I have
been using it very often. In its current version, it's even possible to
use it for literary analysis purposes!
Best regards,
Manuel Castelao