Is there a direct way to get word count in TeXstudio?

Question

The Text Analysis tool in TeXstudio is quite useful, but I seems I can not find a direct and accurate way to obtain the total number of words in the compiled PDF file.

As I understood, this tool counts the phrases in text. Even if set the length each phrase to only one word, I do not get an accurate count in comparison with the word count function in Texmaker.

What do you think?

P.s., I'm using the TeXstudio V2.8.6, MAC.

Answer 1

menu: Tools\Analyse Text then: count

From the comments:

In the second drop down box set maximum words per phrase: to 1 (I think this is default) then phrase = word.

Also if you have selected a piece of text, for Source choose Selection

Answer 2

It is possible to do that by using the utilities pdftotext and wc [1]. Integration in texstudio is possible by

1. Install pdftotext and wc

2. Create a script

   • Windows: count_pdf_words.bat
     Content:

     @echo off
     echo Counting words in %1
     echo Result:
     pdftotext %1 - | wc -w

   • Linux: count_pdf_words.sh
     Content:

     #!/bin/bash
     echo Counting words in $1
     echo Result:
     pdftotext $1 - | wc -w

     Make script executable with: chmod +x count_pdf_words.sh

3. Open texstudio -> Options -> Configure -> Build -> User defined commands -> Add

   • First field: user#:Count words in pdf
   • Second field: <path>/count_pdf_words.<ext> %.pdf
   • Replace # with the actual number of your user command (First field)
   • Replace <path> with the path to the script (Second field)
   • Replace <ext> with the extension of the script (Second field)
4. Execute the command with:
   texstudio -> Tools -> User -> Count words in pdf

Answer 3

Adding onto keocra's solution, here is a PowerShell script that works nicely when used the same way on Windows:

$file=$args[0]
If (-not $file) {
    echo "Please provide a file to query"
    exit 1
}

echo "Counting words in $file"
$result = pdftotext $file - | Measure-Object -Word
$wordCount = $result.Words
echo "Result: $wordCount"

Make sure you prefix the command with either powershell or pwsh in the second (i.e. command) field for your user command, to ensure the script actually runs:

e.g. pwsh "C:\Users\evanjs\scripts\count_pdf_words.ps1" %.pdf

See the Measure-Object documentation for more info on the cmdlet.

---

Another note: I initially tried using xpdf-utils via Chocolatey, but found that the stdout (-) flag did not work.

While the version of Poppler on Chocolatey seems to be a little outdated, it does output to stdout when given the - flag.