Roughly counting words to proofread a website Thread poster: Anna Muntean Stacanova
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please help with this!
an agency asked me to look at the website and tell them price for proofreading.
I looked sadi the price and receive an email that says: are you going to translate 10000 pagees for 200 dollars
definitely I did something wrong counting theamount of words
please say how are you conting the words from a website?
thank you
inka
[Subject edited by staff or moderator 2008-11-24 01:43 GMT]
| | | | Nigel Greenwood (X) 
Spain
Local time: 22:22
Spanish to English
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| I copy the text | Nov 20, 2008 |
I copy the text from the website into a MSWord document, then I use MSWord to give me the word count. It's not so complicated as it sounds.
Nigel
| | | | Anne Brackenborough (X)
Germany
Local time: 22:22
German to English
| Make the quote specific | Nov 20, 2008 |
I normally ask them if they would please copy out the pages they want translated and send it to me, in my case into Word. When I get the file, I then give them a quote saying the name of the file they sent me, the number of lines in that file, and how much each line will cost. That way it's clear exactly what I am providing and there are no nasty misunderstandings.
Sometimes I also go to the website and copy out the text into a Word file myself, then send the file with the quote asking the... See more I normally ask them if they would please copy out the pages they want translated and send it to me, in my case into Word. When I get the file, I then give them a quote saying the name of the file they sent me, the number of lines in that file, and how much each line will cost. That way it's clear exactly what I am providing and there are no nasty misunderstandings.
Sometimes I also go to the website and copy out the text into a Word file myself, then send the file with the quote asking them to check if that is really what they want to have translated. 10,000 pages sounds rather a lot, though... is it really that many? ▲ Collapse
| | | | Anthony Baldwin
United States
Local time: 16:22
Portuguese to English
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| free/open source options, and without converting or copy/pasting even... | Nov 20, 2008 |
I would just download the html files from the site, and open them in the OpenOffice.org html editor, which can count the words.
Also, I could create an OmegaT project with said html files, and get an accurate breakdown of the word count, repetitions, etc., from OmegaT.
I think converting html files to MSWord documents is rather silly when there are appropriate tools for translating them without such conversion, and no necessary intervention on the part of the client.
Sim... See more I would just download the html files from the site, and open them in the OpenOffice.org html editor, which can count the words.
Also, I could create an OmegaT project with said html files, and get an accurate breakdown of the word count, repetitions, etc., from OmegaT.
I think converting html files to MSWord documents is rather silly when there are appropriate tools for translating them without such conversion, and no necessary intervention on the part of the client.
Simple and easy.
With OmegaT, for instance, I can deliver a target html file, formatted precisely as the original, to the client, which they can then simply upload to their webserver, and pronto, rather than delivering them a M$Word .doc which they must then copy/paste text from to regenerate their target html file.
Maybe that's why I get website localization jobs.
Call me a geek...I don't care.
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Gerard de Noord
France
Local time: 22:22
Member (2003)
English to Dutch
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| There is no way | Nov 21, 2008 |
This question has come up many times before. There is no way to tell how many words a website contains. This very website is the prove of it. Open the Dutch interface and this site will happily create thousands of Dutch pages on the fly. The only professional approach is counting (translatable) units in the files you receive as e-mail attachments.
Regards,
Gerard
| | | | Samuel Murray
Netherlands
Local time: 22:22
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
| The client should send you the web site, zipped | Nov 21, 2008 |
Inka Stacanova wrote:
an agency asked me to look at the website and tell them price for proofreading. ... please say how are you conting the words from a website?
In your agreement with the client, you should specify the volume of work yourself. So if you have counted the words, and your count is "1000 words", then you should mention that in your quote. If the client then says "No, there are 100 000 words", you should ask the client to send you the web site, zipped, so that you won't make any mistakes including or excluding pages that the client had not intended to be part of the job.
| | | | Anne Brackenborough (X)
Germany
Local time: 22:22
German to English
| "silly" method makes sense to me | Nov 21, 2008 |
Anthony Baldwin wrote:
I think converting html files to MSWord documents is rather silly when there are appropriate tools for translating them without such conversion, and no necessary intervention on the part of the client.
Simple and easy.
Seems sensible from my point of view: I don't have the tools you mentioned, so would have to invest the time and money required to purchase them and learn how to use them. As none of my clients have yet complained about my Word file method, I haven't yet had any reason to do so.
| | | | Nigel Greenwood (X)
Spain
Local time: 22:22
Spanish to English
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| I agree with Anne | Nov 21, 2008 |
Anne Koth wrote: Anthony Baldwin wrote:
I think converting html files to MSWord documents is rather silly when there are appropriate tools for translating them without such conversion, and no necessary intervention on the part of the client.
Simple and easy.
Seems sensible from my point of view: I don't have the tools you mentioned, so would have to invest the time and money required to purchase them and learn how to use them. As none of my clients have yet complained about my Word file method, I haven't yet had any reason to do so.
Like Anne, I don't have any of the tools/aplications mentioned by Anthony, (that's probabaly why I don't specialize in Website/Localization texts), but like Anne, the jobs I have done and used MSWord, not only for word counting but also to allow me to create a TM in WordFast, were all well accepted by my clients.
Nigel:)
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| HTTrack Website Copier | Nov 21, 2008 |
Hi Inka,
FWIW, I recently had to prepare a rapid quote - the kind of customer who sends a two-line mail asking how much it would cost to translate 'mywebsite.com'. This type of customer generally has no idea how much translations actually cost and are just fishing for information, so spending hours preparing an exact quote is totally out of the question.
After sending a polite e-mail requesting the text in individual Word or html files - the response to which was of co... See more Hi Inka,
FWIW, I recently had to prepare a rapid quote - the kind of customer who sends a two-line mail asking how much it would cost to translate 'mywebsite.com'. This type of customer generally has no idea how much translations actually cost and are just fishing for information, so spending hours preparing an exact quote is totally out of the question.
After sending a polite e-mail requesting the text in individual Word or html files - the response to which was of course 'I don't have any, can you just give me a rough idea' - I downloaded the pages with HTTrack and ran the files through PractiCount for a word count. I obviously made it clear to the customer that this was an approximate count and it would be up to him to check the content of these files before translation in order to settle on what actually would need to be translated. It took me all of ten minutes, so I didn't feel I was wasting too much time, and the HTTrack software is easy to use. I'm not sure how accurate it actually is though as it's the first time I've used it. It appears to have quite good reviews.
Guess what - the order wasn't confirmed because translation proved too expensive...
K ▲ Collapse
| | | | Anne Brackenborough (X)
Germany
Local time: 22:22
German to English
| approximate count | Nov 21, 2008 |
Katherine Mérignac wrote:
I obviously made it clear to the customer that this was an approximate count and it would be up to him to check the content of these files before translation in order to settle on what actually would need to be translated.
It's worth making this very clear indeed, as I had a similarly offhand enquiry where the client did offer me the job in the end, but he didn't check (even though I asked him to in my quote) if the file my quote was based on was OK. At the end he complained that more had been translated than necessary, but fortunately I had my quote saying exactly what I would translate, and he very decently paid the amount due. (I offered a tiny reduction to show good faith.)
| | | | QUOI
Chinese to English
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| I have used this one | Nov 22, 2008 |
I have used this (still lurks in my bookmark collection folder) in the past: http://www.kwintessential.co.uk/translation/website-wordcount-tool.php
Don't just rely on one tool, try a couple of different methods and if necessary, do a manual word count of one or two typical pages and compare your results.
Because almost all large(-ish) websi... See more I have used this (still lurks in my bookmark collection folder) in the past: http://www.kwintessential.co.uk/translation/website-wordcount-tool.php
Don't just rely on one tool, try a couple of different methods and if necessary, do a manual word count of one or two typical pages and compare your results.
Because almost all large(-ish) websites are managed via a content management system of sort, you will often find that your guess is as good as your client's. So set a unit price (ie per 100 words) and make sure, if the job eventuates, that they send you all the files for translation. ▲ Collapse
| | | | | I use TransAbacus | May 27, 2009 |
I use TransAbacus (http://www.transabacus.com) to count the amout of words on websites. The advantages of this tool is that I don't need to download the entire web site to my PC (since it counts it online), and that it counts all the translatable text (metatags, alt text, titles).
[Edited at 2009-05-27 13:00 GMT]
[Edited at 2009-05-27 13:01 GMT]
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Yaotl Altan
Mexico
Local time: 14:22
Member (2006)
English to Spanish
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| Other formats. | Jul 7, 2009 |
barreiro04 wrote: I use TransAbacus ( http://www.transabacus.com) to count the amout of words on websites. The advantages of this tool is that I don't need to download the entire web site to my PC (since it counts it online), and that it counts all the translatable text (metatags, alt text, titles). [Edited at 2009-05-27 13:00 GMT] [Edited at 2009-05-27 13:01 GMT]
Hi, barriero, and this Transabacus also counts words in Powerpoint and Excel files?
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