Re: Rules for counting words in XyW 3+

[WooF owlswick@xxxxxxxx]

I'm a professional magazine editor. I use what's caled "Printer's
Rule" for counting words: number of characters in a typical,
mid-paragraph line, divided by 6, times the number of lines in
the whole document. Count lines that will be blank in the final
document; don't count blank lines between paragraphs that wil
disappear in teh final document.

To do this quickly in XyWrite:

Use a monospaced font on screen,
Set line length to 63 characters.

Set lines per page at 100 lines.

Close up blank lines between paragraphs unless they are lines
that will be blank in the final, typeset copy.

Go to the end of the document on screen. Look at the page/line
counter. (pages minus 1) x 100 plus (lines on last page) gives
the total line count. Multiply that times 100, then divide by
six. This gives you the "word" count by Printer's Rule -- which
is really a measure of the space the document will take on a
typeset page; it is NOT a measure of the number of real words,
but it's more useful for typesetters, layout folks, and editors.

George H Scithers of owlswick@xxxxxxxx
Editor, Weird Tales

On Tue, 26 Feb 2002, Alison Tartt wrote:

>
> Can anyone tell me how XyWrite 3+ determines a word when counting words in
> a document (WC command)? I'm trying to figure out why XyWrite's count is so
> radically and consistently different from MS-Word's. If this has already
> been address on the list, I apologize.
>
> Thanks,
> Alison Tartt
>