Can I set word count to not count words with three letters less?

[Guest]

I have a paper to write for my Comp class. She will not count words with 3
letters or less. I need to write a 500 word paper. I need to know if there is
a way to set word count to not count words with less then 4 letters.

 

[Guest]

I am using Word 2003. I forgot to type that in before.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

Not without a macro, no. But this is a ridiculous stipulation. No one in the
real world counts words that way. It suggests that your instructor wants you
to avoid plain speaking and clarity (using honest Anglo-Saxon words) fill
your paper with obfuscatory fifty-cent Latin derivatives. It might be an
interesting challenge to write a paper that didn't *contain* any words of
three letters or fewer. <g>

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.

 

[Guest]

It is not that we can not use them. She just will not count then as part of
the 500.

 

[Jay Freedman]

Here's one way to count the longer words:

First make a copy of the original document, and be sure to close the
original so it doesn't get overwritten by mistake. It would also be a
good idea to set up the backup method described at
http://www.gmayor.com/automatically_backup.htm.

In the copy, open the Replace dialog. Click the More button, and check
the box for "Use wildcards".

In the Find What box, enter this search expression:

<[A-Za-z]{1,3}>

which finds any sequence of one, two, or three letters that form a
word. (For more on wildcards, see
http://www.gmayor.com/replace_using_wildcards.htm.)

Leave the Replace With box blank, and click the Replace All button.
That will remove all the short words from the text.

Close the Replace dialog and open the Tools > Word Count dialog. This
count includes only the remaining words, which are all four or more
letters.

Be sure to close the copy and return to the original document to
continue editing. When you're doing things with similar documents,
ALWAYS double-check the document name in the title bar before you
change anything, save anything, or delete any files!

--
Regards,
Jay Freedman
Microsoft Word MVP
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the
newsgroup so all may benefit.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

I wasn't suggesting that you couldn't use them, just that not counting them
is just as stupid as outlawing them. In the real world, when you're asked to
write a 500-word composition, *all* words are counted. They certainly
average out to more than three characters.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.

 

[JoAnn Paules [MVP]]

I gotta tell you, I've never been asked to write a 500 word composition in
the real world.

--

JoAnn Paules
MVP Microsoft [Publisher]

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

It's not unusual to be given a specific word count for an assigned article
(for a magazine, for example). It may be more or less than 500 words, but it
will definitely include *all* the words. And if the submitted article is
over or under by more than a small percentage, the author will be asked to
edit and resubmit.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.

I gotta tell you, I've never been asked to write a 500 word composition in
the real world.

--

JoAnn Paules
MVP Microsoft [Publisher]

I wasn't suggesting that you couldn't use them, just that not counting them
is just as stupid as outlawing them. In the real world, when you're asked
to
write a 500-word composition, *all* words are counted. They certainly
average out to more than three characters.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup
so
all may benefit.

part
of words
of if
there

 

[Graham Mayor]

You don't need to remove the words?
Do a wildcard find of
[A-Za-z]{4,}
and highlight all the words. This will give you a count of the found words.

--
<>>< ><<> ><<> <>>< ><<> <>>< <>><<>
Graham Mayor - Word MVP

My web site www.gmayor.com

<>>< ><<> ><<> <>>< ><<> <>>< <>><<>

Here's one way to count the longer words:

First make a copy of the original document, and be sure to close the
original so it doesn't get overwritten by mistake. It would also be a
good idea to set up the backup method described at
http://www.gmayor.com/automatically_backup.htm.

In the copy, open the Replace dialog. Click the More button, and check
the box for "Use wildcards".

In the Find What box, enter this search expression:

<[A-Za-z]{1,3}>

which finds any sequence of one, two, or three letters that form a
word. (For more on wildcards, see
http://www.gmayor.com/replace_using_wildcards.htm.)

Leave the Replace With box blank, and click the Replace All button.
That will remove all the short words from the text.

Close the Replace dialog and open the Tools > Word Count dialog. This
count includes only the remaining words, which are all four or more
letters.

Be sure to close the copy and return to the original document to
continue editing. When you're doing things with similar documents,
ALWAYS double-check the document name in the title bar before you
change anything, save anything, or delete any files!

Not without a macro, no. But this is a ridiculous stipulation. No
one in the real world counts words that way. It suggests that your
instructor wants you to avoid plain speaking and clarity (using
honest Anglo-Saxon words) fill your paper with obfuscatory
fifty-cent Latin derivatives. It might be an interesting challenge
to write a paper that didn't *contain* any words of three letters or
fewer. <g>

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the
newsgroup so all may benefit.