We at Emmaus are not interested in producing software that artificially inflates the line count.
We will let other software producers hawk their wares as "Generating the highest line count of any counting software." Thank you, we at Emmaus are not interested. Our counts are accurate. Accuracy is fair to the MT and fair to the client paying the bill.
Other software producers use these "antics" to generate their higher counts:
- Count every capital letter as two letters.
- Count every letter in a bolded word as two letters.
- Count each cell in a table as a separate line, as Word does.
Perhaps we at Emmaus are just old-fashioned, but we cannot condone or be a part of such deception. We feel both sides of the table, MT and client, deserve to be treated fairly. Below are screen shots of the statistics generated on the same document by MS Word (XP version), and the counts generated by MPTools. (You may download the document here -- not a real transcription.)
- Word does not include Tabs and Hard Returns in its Characters (with Spaces). MPTools includes Tabs, Hard Returns and Spaces in its Characters Extended method.
- Below is a full disclosure from the help file of the counting methods in MPTools. You won't find any snake-oil methods in MPTools, just accurate counting.
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The line counting methods:
MPTools provides multiple line counting methods. The counting method applied when you create an invoice is the method you've specified for that client.
The counting methods:
The MPTools counting methods are defined by 3 bits of information:
- What to count (i.e. the unit of measure)
- Where to count (what portions of the document to include)
- What to divide by (for counting methods under 600, and method 900.)
What to count:
- Characters Strict counts all characters that put ink on the page: letters, numbers, symbols and punctuation. It excludes all spaces, hard returns, tabs and formatting codes. (Internal value = 100)
- Characters Extended (with spaces) counts all printable characters as well as spaces, tabs and hard returns. This varies a little from MS Word's character with spaces, for that count does not include the tabs and hard returns. (Internal value = 200)
- Characters Extended + Function keys counts Characters Extended plus these formatting function codes: bold, italic, underline, subscript, superscript, smallcaps, alignment changes (right, center, full), font size changes. (Internal value = 300)
- Words counts what the human eye/mind see as a word. For example, I.V. is one word. (Internal value = 400)
- Byte size of file, IF in ASCII saves the body of the document to an ASCII text file and reads what the file size is. Byte size is generally a bit larger than Characters Extended, for hard returns in a Notepad document consist of a pair of character, not just one. (Internal value = 500)
- Lines Strict, excluding blanks counts the number of lines with typing on them. (Internal value = 600)
- Lines Extended, including blanks counts all the lines, even the lines with nothing on them, such as the lines in a letter between the doctor's closing and his name. (Internal value = 700)
- Pages counts the pages. (Internal value = 800)
- Characters Strict + Words counts the characters without spaces, and adds to that total the number of words. Although this count generally generates the same value as Characters Extended (unless the document has been padded with extra spaces), it is included to accommodate governmental agencies (e.g. VA), who have traditionally used this method. (Internal value = 900)
Where to count:
- Document body counts the body -- the text -- of the report, excluding headers/footers. (Increment value = 0)
- Full document adds to the Document body count the count found in headers/footers. For example, if you have a header of 4 lines appearing on pages 2, 3 and 4 of the document, then MPTools multiples 4 lines x 3 occurrences for a total of 12. (Increment value = 10)
Divide by:
This number, available for methods 100 through 500 and method 900, specifies what number to use in division. For example, if you have reached agreement with your facility for a 60 character line, you would set this to 60. Note that MPTools always rounds up any remainder in division: If the character count for a document is 61, when MPTools divides by 60, it will report the line count as 2 (because there is a remainder of 1 in the division). MPTools always rounds up in the MT's favor. If this rounding up is unacceptable to the facility, then set the division to 1 (equivalent to no division), and manually calculate it on the invoice.
MPTools counting limitations:
- MPTools, prior to build 107, could not properly count a multi-sectioned document. Build 107 (service pack 107) adds functionality to count such documents.
- Neither MPTools nor Word 97 support the Word 2000 (and higher) shrink-graphic-to-fit feature. Word 97 and MPTools expect the graphic to have been properly sized before inserting into the document. If shrink-graphic-to-fit has been used, ONLY the page count will differ in MPTools from the actual.
How the counts will differ from Word's statistics:
- If a document contains tables, Word will count each cell as a separate line. For example if you have a table with 5 columns and 4 rows, Word will report this table as 20 lines, not as 4 lines. MPTools makes the appropriate adjustments in such cases, accurately reporting the number of lines.
- Word has no provision for only lines with typing on them (Lines Strict).
- Word has no provision for including the headers/footers in the counts, and no provision for formatting codes.
- Word's Characters with spaces, means just that: it counts the spaces. MPTools adds to this the tabs and hard returns as well.
- In an auto-numbered list, Word counts the numbers (1., 2.) in its character count, while MPTools does not include these.
We at Emmaus are very proud of the accuracy of the counting methods. Since we had our origins among the rank and file of the working MT, we took great pain to make the counting methods the most accurate in the industry. We will let others boast their software generates higher counts. We will rest in the fact that our counts are accurate.
You may want to print this page and give copies of it to your clients when negotiating contracts. They may appreciate your full disclosure.
